The head of the first budget travel agency to North Korea, Troy Collings, has died of a heart attack at 33.
He was the co-founder and managing director of Young Pioneer Tours — an agency which focused on younger tourists who wanted to travel to the secretive communist country.
Driven by the goal of making visiting North Korea affordable, the company had a big impact on tourism to the North.
首創北韓旅遊行程的旅行社創辦人Troy Collings 因心臟病逝世，享年33歲。
身為青年先鋒旅行社(Young Pioneer Tours)的共同創辦人兼總經理，創立宗旨為率領有志青年一窺共產國家的神秘面紗。
Troy Collings致力於將北韓旅費平價化，北韓的旅遊業也因此帶來經濟上的成長。
Mr Collings, who was from New Zealand, died last week, the company said.
“Troy was instrumental in establishing Young Pioneer Tours as one of the leading travel companies for North Korea,” the firm said in a statement.
“We here at YPT have lost a visionary and a true pioneer to the travelling industry.
“Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know or to be led on a tour by Troy have lost a dear friend.”
Mr Collings co-founded the company with Gareth Johnson in 2008.
In an interview in 2018, he said his interest in the country was spurred by the 2004 documentary on North Korean gymnastics, A State of Mind.
來自紐西蘭的Collings於上週逝世。
旅行社也在官網發文表示：「Troy帶來的影響遠超過想像，不僅讓青年先鋒旅行社(Young Pioneer Tours)成為北韓旅遊的創始者，
他那有願景的創舉也深深影響所有旅遊相關業者。
我們很幸運能夠在人生的旅途中與他相識並成為他麾下的員工，很遺憾地，如今我們失去了這位摯愛的朋友。」
2008年， Collings 與 Gareth Johnson共同創辦了這間公司。
2018年的一場採訪中，Collings也表示他因為看了北韓在2004年上映的體操紀錄片《精神狀態》而對這個國家產生極大興趣。
During a subsequent trip, he realised “the potential tourism had to help the locals and to influence the country’s development”.
“More importantly, I made some real human connections with people I met that had a profound effect on me,” he said.
“I decided during that trip that this is what I wanted to dedicate my life to.”
而在往後的旅行中，他領悟到旅遊產業的真諦就是為當地居民帶來正面影響，進而實質地幫助到國家發展。
他也表示：「更重要的是，我也曾經和途中相遇的陌生人產生真正的情感交流，這對我的人生有了深遠的影響。」
Together with Mr Johnson — to whom he credited the idea — he began building a travel business to take groups to North Korea, at around half the cost of what other tour organisers were asking.
“The hurdles were less than most people would expect, but that was mostly due to good relations, with good partners we had formed in Pyongyang over our visits,” he said.
The agency’s packages range from visiting the capital, to the Pyongyang Marathon, to tours through the countryside.
“If it were not for the budget pricing model which YPT pioneered then many young people would never have had the chance to visit the DPRK,” Chad O’Carroll, managing director of North Korea specialist website NK News told the BBC.
“These are tours which in some cases — such as my own — played a major role in catalyzing a long-term interest in focusing on the country.”
和Johnson分享了這份理念後，他們開始領隊前往北韓旅遊，而旅費幾乎是其他業者提出的一半。
「其實創業的路上經歷的挫折沒有大部分的人認為的那麼多，但有可能是因為遇見了好的夥伴，與平壤的商家有好的合作關係。」
旅行社提供的套裝行程包含了遊訪首都、共襄盛舉平壤的馬拉松活動，有時也會帶旅客深入體驗偏鄉生活。
「要不是因為青年先鋒旅行社縮減旅費預算的創舉，許多青年大概沒有什麼機會可以到北韓旅遊」Chad O’Carroll NK News 北韓專題新聞網的總經理表示。
All trips to North Korea receive close scrutiny from the North — groups are accompanied by a North Korean guide and it’s not possible to choose your own itinerary.
Today, the company also offers other tours off the beaten track, including Chernobyl in Belarus or East Timor in Asia.
In 2018, Mr Collings said he’d “learnt a lot — but the biggest lessons have probably been to examine my own biases and view everything with a critical eye”.
所有到北韓旅遊的行程都需要經由北韓政府嚴密的審視，每個旅行團也都會有一位北韓領隊，所以不太可能可以自由決定想要的行程。
如今，旅行社也開始提供其他偏鄉秘境的旅遊路線，包含了遊訪位於白俄羅斯的車諾比、亞洲的東帝汶。
2018年，Collings說過他從此學習到了很多，但最大的收穫是正視到自己擁有的偏見，而不再用有色眼光來看待世界。
“People talk all the time about North Korean propaganda, but it’s naive to think we aren’t inundated with our own. Things aren’t black and white and agendas are everywhere.
“Don’t just form opinions based off the last book or article you read or speaker you saw but reserve judgement until you really have an understanding of a situation.”
While tourism to North Korea remains niche, it has brought a steady flow of revenue to the country.
Numbers are hard to get and not reliable, but it’s thought that around 100,000 foreigners visit the country each year.
The vast majority are Chinese — the number of non-Chinese tourists is estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000 per year.
人們總是覺得北韓充斥著共產主義的思想，難道這樣的我們就沒有被灌輸既有的價值觀嗎？世界上的人事物並不是非黑即白，需要社會關注的地方也很多。
不要只盲目地相信你看過的書或是文章中闡述的想法，保留中立態度直到你了解了整件事情的來龍去脈。
雖然北韓旅遊在目前還算小眾，但是也帶給北韓的經濟產業不少穩定的成長。
切確的數據比較難掌控，但預估每年約有10萬人至此觀光。
且大部分都是中國人，而其餘部分大約佔了8千至1萬人。
