SEOUL, South Korea—International hotel operator Kempinski AG says it will manage a 105-story, pyramid-shaped hotel in Pyongyang that is expected to open next year.
Kempinski AG chief Reto Wittwer told a Seoul forum Thursday that the Ryugyong Hotel will open “partially, probably” in the middle of next year with shops, offices, ballrooms, restaurants and 150 rooms.
He says Cairo-based Orascom Telecom is funding the hotel. The firm launched a mobile network in North Korea in 2008.
North Korea began building the Ryugyong in the 1980s but stopped when funding ran out in the 1990s. The enormous hotel remains a source of fascination and ridicule for the outside world.
Wittwer says he initially thought that the hotel could eventually make a lot of money.