This year’s edition attracted about 950 westerners, according to Koryo Tours, compared to some 450 last year when numbers slumped.
Twice as many foreigners as last year gathered in Pyongyang for the city’s annual marathon, tour agencies said, as reduced tensions attract more visitors to isolated North Korea.
The marathon, a highlight of the North’s tourism calendar, is part of celebrations for the anniversary of founder Kim II Sung’s birth in 1912.
This year’s edition attracted about 950 westerners, according to Koryo Tours, compared to some 450 last year when numbers slumped.
The figures bring participation back to 2017 levels, before tensions soared as the North carried out a series of missile launches.
The US banned its citizens from visiting the North after the death of Otto Warmbier, a US student jailed for trying to steal a propaganda poster, who later died in a mysterious coma days after his release.
Several other countries also raised travel warnings that dealt a significant blow to the North’s tourism industry.
The US ban remains in place but more Western tourists signed up for the marathon this time, tour operators said, following a year of high-level diplomacy between Trump and Kim.
The country’s main source of visitors come from Chinese, with some 5,000 Westerners a year used to visit the North, with about 20% of those from the US, seeking unique adventures in one of the most closed countries in the world.