Otto Warmbier Came Home in a Coma. Travel Company Says North Korea Is ‘Extremely Safe!’

But the case has prompted fresh scrutiny of the agencies — many of them based in China — that take foreign tourists to North Korea and calls for new restrictions on travel to the country, where three other American citizens are still being held on charges of ill-defined crimes against the authoritarian state.

Fred Warmbier, Otto's father, lashed out at Young Pioneer Tours at an emotional news conference on Thursday. "The North Koreans lure Americans to travel to North Korea via tour groups, run out of China, who advertise slick ads on the internet proclaiming, 'No American ever gets detained on our tours' and 'This is a safe place to go,'" he said.

After Otto Warmbier was medically evacuated to the United States, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said the administration was considering restrictions on American travel to North Korea.

Tourism in North Korea is tightly controlled by the government, and it is an important source of funds for the isolated nation's economy; China said more th an 237,000 of its citizens visited in 2012. But about 4,000 to 5,000 Western tourists visit annually too, drawn by the promise of an adventure far from the typical tourist trail. About 20 percent of them are from the United States, according to tour operators.

Young Pioneer Tours is one of a handful of companies authorized to organize trips to North Korea. Its website says it is based in the Chinese city of Xi'an and run by people from several countries including Australia, Britain, China and New Zealand. It advertises "budget tours to destinations your mother wants you to stay away from," including "the first North Korean booze cruise and beer festival."

Troy Collings, North Korea tour manager for Young Pioneer, said his company's "greatest wish is for a full recovery for Otto." While the company wished it could have prevented what happened, Mr. Collings wrote in an email, "we didn't see any signs of concern until it was too late."

Photo Otto Warmbier at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang in March 2016. Credit Jon Chol Jin/Associated Press

The company intended its website's statement about North Korea's safety as a reflection of the lack of crime or terrorist attacks, he wrote.

"We believe our current pretour procedures are more than adequate for informing our guests how to have a safe trip, something reflected by the fact we have taken more than 8,000 tourists into North Korea over the last 10 years with only one arrest," he wrote.

But Young Pioneer's website presents a cheerier view of travel to North Korea than many of its competitors, describing it as "probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit."

Unlike some competitors, it makes no mention of the United States State Department's travel advisory that "strongly warns" Americans against traveling to North Korea because of the "serious risk of arrest and long-term detention." Instead, the website asks: "I'm American. Is this a problem?" and answers, "Not at all!"

Adam Pitt, a British citizen who lives in Dubai and traveled with Young Pioneer to North Korea in 2013, said people on the tour drank excessively and asked inappropriate sexual questions of a female North Korean guide. The company's co-founder, Gareth Johnson, did nothing to stop the behavior and was also drinking, he added.

"North Korea is not a budget destinat ion," Mr. Pitt said by email. "It's not a place where you cut costs, and it's not a place where you want to take risks."

Anthony Ruggiero, a former State Department and Treasury Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said the United States should sanction tour companies that promote travel to North Korea as safe and impose limits on visits by Americans.

"North Korea is essentially kidnapping Americans, detaining Americans for no real good reason," he said.

Mr. Ruggiero testified before Congress this year that North Korea uses the American detainees as bargaining chips, distracting from diplomacy on other issues, including its nuclear and missile programs.

Others argue that freedom of movement is an important right, and that tourism fosters mutual understanding that could help ease tensions between the United States and North Korea.

Photo From left, Dr. Jordan Bonomo, Dr. Daniel Kanter and Dr. Brandon Forman speaking about the condition and treatment of Mr. Warmbier at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center on Thursday. Credit Bryan Woolston/Reuters

"I truly believe that the North Korean people will benefit from any contact they get, however small, with those that come from the outside world," said Ron Lish, an American businessman who visited North Korea in February. "It's my belief that these glimpses of the rest of the world provide them with information that they wouldn't otherwise get."

Andrea Lee, who runs the United States-based Uri Tours, called what happened to Mr. Warmbier "truly unfortunate and saddening" but said that tourism to North Korea "is safe so long as you follow the rules of the tour."

"We have safely taken thousands of Americans to North Korea," Ms. Lee said by email. "These trips are often a moving life-changing experience for both foreigners and locals who are able to interact as human beings and gain a different perspective of the so-called 'enemy.'"

Three Americans remain in North Korean custody, all of them of Korean ancestry: Kim Dong-chul, a businessman sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for espionage, and Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song, two volunteers at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, who were arrested earlier this year and accused of "hostile acts."

Diplomats say the North Korean authorities generally treat ethnic Koreans more harsh ly than other foreigners in detention.

Cheong Seong-chang, senior North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute, a think tank in South Korea, said the North may have decided to release Mr. Warmbier "before things got worse, considering the backlash and sanctions it could expect should he die while he was in its custody."

Mr. Cheong said that North Korea may be trying to open a channel of dialogue with the United States ahead of a summit meeting later this month between President Trump and South Korea's new president, Moon Jae-in. By releasing Mr. Warmbier, he said, "North Korea opened the possibility of releasing the other American detainees as well."

But the severity of Mr. Warmbier's condition, and the mys tery surrounding it, complicates the prospects for talks. At the news conference on Thursday, Mr. Warmbier's father said his son had been "brutalized and terrorized" during 18 months of captivity.

Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said they found no sign of botulism or of beatings.

They said Mr. Warmbier's brain damage was most likely caused by cardiopulmonary arrest. Based on two M.R.I. scans sent by the North Koreans, they concluded that he had sustained his brain injury sometime before April 2016.

"I know you have many questions about what transpired," Mr. Warmbier's father said to reporters Thursday. "So do we. We have few answers."

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Source: Otto Warmbier Came Home in a Coma. Travel Company Says North Korea Is 'Extremely Safe!'