BEIJING - CHINESE tour groups will be allowed to visit North Korea under a plan to designate the isolated communist state as an official travel destination, Beijing's National Tourism Agency said on Wednesday.

The announcement follows South Korea's decision to suspend its decade-old tour programme to the North's Diamond Mountain resort in response to the fatal shooting of a 53-year-old South Korean housewife by a North Korean army guard there in July.

Tours of the mountain resort, run by South Korea's Hyundai Asan company, had been an important source of hard currency for the cash-strapped North. About 1.9 million visitors, mostly South Koreans, have travelled to the resort since it opened in 1998.

North Korea presently sees few overseas visitors due to tight visa restrictions and a lack of tourism infrastructure. Numbers of potential Chinese visitors weren't known, and the agency's announcement said practical issues needed to be hammered out before visits could begin.

Chinese tourists have been allowed to make day trips across the Yalu river to the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the opposite bank in the past.

Once North Korea becomes an official travel destination, then Chinese tour companies will be able to start arranging group travel, which is currently not allowed, and will also be able to promote North Korea as a tourist site.

While potentially making up for North Korea's loss of southern tourists, the Chinese plan also reflects traditionally close political and economic ties between the neighbours.

China allied with the North against South Korea and the United States in the 1950-1953 Korean War and continues to provide food and fuel assistance to its destitute neighbour while hosting multinational talks aimed at reducing tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

According to the tourism plan, tentatively agreed to during a visit by the Chinese agency's deputy chief last month, North Korea will also be allowed to set up a tourism representative office in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, about three hours' drive from the North Korean border.

China has added a growing number of countries to its list of approved destinations, offering them access to a lucrative source of inbound tourism as newly prosperous urban Chinese seek to expand their travel horizons. -- AP