Up until early 2020, North Korea under Kim Jong Un had opened more widely to tourism as his regime pursued tourism development for multifarious purposes. However, social changes, changing external environment, and the authorities’ responses to them are reshaping the country including tourism. Nevertheless, while in limbo during the pandemic years, tourism development was not abandoned. How has Pyongyang’s outlook for tourism changed during the pandemic, and what path will North Korea take to revive this seemingly peripheral yet portentously significant leader-linked industry? This paper qualitatively examines the current state of North Korea and its ‘socialist tourism’ by considering various internal dynamics and external factors that influence the leadership. With the pandemic having served as proxy for shutting out the world and shifting toward insularity nationwide, affording the regime time to reinforce ideological purity and political loyalty among the population, the contact and mobility aspects of the tourism reopening will be cautious, selective and limited, emphasizing political heritage and links with ‘friendly’ countries. Nevertheless, the industry’s sustainability will require regime compromises to the society it wants to control and international actors it seeks to exploit.