With Panmunjom tours suspended for more than three years, the Ministry of Unification has been budgeting around 2 billion won every year for the tour program and leaving 800 million to 900 million won unspent each year. The number of tour visitors has fallen from the 3,000s a year under normal operation to a few hundred special-tour visitors, but the budget has been drawn up on the same basis of staff and vehicles as under normal operation. Nearly 500 million won has also been spent without fail every year on maintaining a website that accepts no tour applications, has effectively ceased to function and seems frozen in time.
Visitors 3,773 → 41, budget unchanged at 2 billion won
According to the review report on next year's budget bill by the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, released on the 10th, the Ministry of Unification has allocated a total of 2.351 billion won for next year: 1.875 billion won for the integrated Panmunjom tour operation project and 476 million won for the tour website operation project. That is 142 million won (6.4%) more than this year's 2.209 billion won for the related projects.
Panmunjom tours are divided into 'general tours', which any citizen could apply for through the website, and 'special tours', which the ministry arranges separately with specific institutions and organizations. General tours were suspended in July 2023 after a U.S. soldier on a Panmunjom tour crossed into North Korea without authorization and inter-Korean tensions rose, and they have not resumed since. Special tours, held for some senior officials and VIPs, were also suspended from December 2023 amid the suspension and abrogation of the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement, and resumed only in May last year, after a year and six months.
As a result, annual tour visitors, which had stood at more than 3,500 through 2023, plunged to 41 in 2024. Even last year, when special tours resumed, the figure was only 341, and this year it stood at 555 through the end of September, so it is unlikely to reach past levels. Yet the budget for Panmunjom tours, now little more than a signboard, is actually trending higher than in 2022, when normal operations were in full swing. The project budget has risen slightly each year from 2.056 billion won in 2022 and will increase by nearly 300 million won to 2.351 billion won next year.
The problem is that this overbudgeting leaves large amounts unspent every year. Unspent amounts for the related budget came to 748 million won in 2023, when general tours effectively began to be suspended, 963 million won in 2024 and 810 million won last year. The ministry expects 871 million won to go unspent this year as well. In 2024, 1.192 billion won was spent, which, simply divided by that year's 41 visitors, means more than 29 million won was spent per visitor. That is 55 times the figure for 2022 (about 530,000 won), when tours operated normally. For the three years tours have been halted, budgeting and spending have stayed at the scale of the heyday of the tours.
The situation is not expected to differ much next year. The ministry budgeted 812 million won for labor costs for 21 public service staff at the Panmunjom Tour Support Center next year (3 reception, 8 drivers, 2 sanitation, 6 interpreters/guides, 1 facilities and 1 translator), and 411.12 million won for leasing six tour buses. These are the same standards as this year.
However, as of September this year, the center had hired 12 public service staff, leaving 9 of the budgeted positions unfilled. Only two tour buses were leased, and only 2 of the 8 drivers budgeted for were hired. There is not a single facilities or interpretation staff member. Counting only the lease cost of the four buses not in operation, 274.08 million won a year could be put toward projects where fiscal spending is far more urgent.
While hundreds of millions of won in tour project funds are left over every year, the maintenance budget for the website, which has effectively become a 'ghost page', has been spent almost in full at nearly 500 million won. The ministry has budgeted 477 million won every year from 2022 to this year for maintenance of the tour system and has executed more than 96% of it each year. The same company has handled the maintenance for five years under a negotiated contract through the Public Procurement Service. Of next year's budgeted 476 million won, 370.7 million won is for operating a help desk, and it is unclear who would use this service while tours are suspended.
Spending 500 million won a year on a website with a 'tours suspended' banner
Visiting the website, one first sees a banner reading 'Notice of Tour Suspension'. Most major functions, including the Panmunjom Gallery and Panmunjom Video menus for uploading Panmunjom-related content and the Communication Square where citizens interact, are left as empty shells. The system also handles tour applications and guidance, but with general tours suspended, the number of actual visitors to the website is presumed to be very small. The chief expert committee member of the budget committee judged that, given only 22 special tours were held last year, fewer than 30 people may have actually used the system for tour applications or management.
The Ministry of Unification takes the position that it needs to prepare in advance because general tours could resume if conditions such as inter-Korean relations change. However, the National Assembly has repeatedly pointed out overbudgeting and unspent funds for the program since the suspension of tours, and the ministry reportedly replied that it would make efforts to cut management costs, such as adjusting staffing and reducing lease costs, and even reported 'action completed' on related corrective demands. The same criticism appears in the Assembly at every budget and settlement review, but this year the budget was even increased, so there has been no real improvement.
The chief expert committee member of the budget committee said in the report, “It is undesirable for inefficient budget execution or unspent funds to recur every year, so improvement measures need to be sought.”