Troy Collings

Collings was from Auckland, New Zealand. He graduated from the University of Auckland business school in 2008. He helped open the Tumen-Namyang border between China and North Korea to foreign tourists. In 2012, he launched the Pyongyang Deaf and Blind Centre funding. In the same year, he spoke about North Korean citizens having an ever-increasing choice of food at the Kwangbok Department Store in Pyongyang. In 2017, he was quoted as saying that hemp was as cheap as tobacco in North Korea. On 5 March 2020, it was announced that he had died of a heart attack at the age of 33. == Young Pioneer Tours ==

In 2008, Collings and Gareth Johnson founded Young Pioneer Tours while living as expatriates in China. and Collings worked as a managing director. One of their aims was to make travelling to North Korea affordable; their tours cost around half the price of existing tours to the country. At the time, a trip to North Korea cost about €2000, but Collings offered trips from €795. Collings believed that engaging people with North Korea could lead to "less mutual distrust in the future." As well as tours to North Korea, the company includes tours of Chernobyl in Ukraine, East Timor, Abkhazia, and Nauru in Micronesia. The organisation also offers short-term study trips to Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, a Chinese-funded language centre. He maintained that North Korea was safe as long as local laws were adhered to, and also refuted claims that Young Pioneer tours targeted Americans, saying that none of their advertising had focused on Americans. ==References==