Inside a £1.6 billion hotel that NEVER had a single guest

Located in Pyongyang, the Ryugyong Hotel was supposed to open its doors more than 25 years ago

By Zac Campbell

Published: 12:24 BST, October 19, 2023 | Updated: 2:25 p.m. BST, 19 October 2023

This hotel has never welcomed a single guest, despite an astronomical construction cost of 1.6 billion of pounds sterling.

Located in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, Ryugyong Hotel was supposed to welcome its first guests more than 25 years ago.

The hotel has been compared to “Mordor” due to its pyramid-shaped structure and its location in one of the poorest countries of the world.

The hotel has been compared to “Mordor” due to its pyramid-shaped structure and its location in one of the countries the poorest in the world.

The hotel has been compared to "Mordor" due to its pyramid-shaped structure and its location in the one of the poorest countries in the world. p>

Construction of the hotel began in 1987 and - had it been completed on schedule two years later - it would have opened as the hotel the highest in the world.

READ MORE: The world's worst white elephants: From Bucharest's £4bn 'People's House', who displaced 40,000 residents to build it, at the 1,082ft 'Mordor' Hotel in North Korea (not forgetting the £6m Marble Arch Mound)

Today it has the slightly more unwanted record of being the tallest unoccupied building in the world.

3,000 rooms...