North Korea has opened an air festival featuring sky diving, demonstrations by its air force and lots of beer to promote a newly renovated and upgraded commercial airport in the coastal city of Wonsan that it hopes will draw more foreign tourists.
![North Korean men and women wave flags and cheer as they watch a military parachuting demonstration. Photo / AP](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/FNTF2EISQKI3LRE2GKLWZAE2YY.jpg?auth=f65388c27cde8862504729f2aab499d9be1d9eb92856902299899edbdce2b5b5&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)
The two-day International Friendship Air Festival has been touted for months by the North as part of its ongoing effort to draw more tourists to the area, which is already popular with Chinese tourists and in the past attracted many Japanese, who came by ferry.
Japanese visits dropped off abruptly as political relations deteriorated over revelations that North Korea had abducted more than a dozen Japanese people in the 1970s and 80s, and then over its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.