North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel Named World's 'Worst Building'... "3,000 Rooms Completely Empty"

UK Media: "An Additional $2 Billion Needed to Complete Ryugyong Hotel"

Ryugyong Hotel located in Pyongyang, North Korea. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoon Seul-gi] North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel has been named the most notorious and expensive worst hotel in the world.

On the 25th (local time), the British media outlet Daily Mail selected buildings notorious for their high maintenance costs and low practicality, despite the expectation that they would become landmarks of their cities due to the large construction expenses.

According to the report, along with Romania's Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Spain's Intempo apartments in Benidorm, Canada's Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Russia's Russky Island Bridge in Vladivostok, and China's New South China Mall in Dongguan, North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang was also selected.

The media explained the reason for selecting Ryugyong Hotel as the "worst hotel" by stating, "This building, with all 105 floors empty, is likely the tallest and emptiest building in the world," and "It is also famous for its pyramid-shaped structure and for being located in one of the poorest countries in the world."

They added, "The godfather of white elephants in architecture is probably the soon-to-open North Korean Ryugyong Hotel." A white elephant refers to a facility that incurs high maintenance costs after a large-scale event but becomes useless due to lack of utilization.

Ryugyong Hotel has a total of about 3,000 rooms. Construction began in 1987 and reached its current height (330m) in 1992. It is known that the Egyptian construction company Orascom Group halted construction for 16 years and resumed work in 2008.

Foreign media estimated that North Korea would need to invest about $2 billion (approximately 2.375 trillion KRW), equivalent to about 5% of North Korea's gross domestic product (GDP), to complete the Ryugyong Hotel.