Kangwon Land will begin a KRW 200 billion ($135.7 million) refurbishment of its resort accommodation in April 2026, the company has confirmed, marking one of the largest infrastructure investments at South Korea’s only casino open to domestic players.
The project will upgrade two key accommodation facilities at the High1 resort complex: the Grand Hotel Main Tower, which houses 477 rooms, and the Mountain Condo, which offers 280. Work is expected to take between 18 and 24 months from the construction start date.
The renovation sits within Kangwon Land’s K-HIT (High1 Integrated Tourism) redevelopment programme, a long-term overhaul of the entire resort campus that extends through approximately 2035. Rather than a standalone refresh, the accommodation upgrade forms one part of a coordinated expansion that includes casino infrastructure improvements and, separately, the construction of a second casino facility at the resort.
Casino upgrades running in parallel
The accommodation work will run alongside a suite of other capital projects. Kangwon Land’s FY2026 capital expenditure budget of KRW 145.4 billion ($135.7 million) covers renovation of the casino’s VIP floor, gaming equipment replacement, and continued development of the second casino. The company received regulatory approval for that second casino from South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in September 2024.
Taken together, the investments reflect a resort operator deploying capital across its full complex rather than concentrating spend in any single area. The phased structure also allows operations to continue during works, avoiding a blanket shutdown of one of the country’s most commercially significant leisure destinations.
South Korea’s unique regulatory position
Kangwon Land occupies an unusual position in South Korea’s tightly regulated gambling market. The country limits casino access for nationals under legislation designed to curb domestic gambling, with the vast majority of the country’s casinos restricted entirely to foreign visitors. Kangwon Land is the sole exception: a legal carve-out allows it to admit South Korean residents, a status it has held since the resort opened in the early 2000s as part of a regional economic development initiative for the Gangwon coal-mining region.
That regulatory distinction makes the resort a unique asset, and any investment in its physical infrastructure carries wider commercial significance than comparable spending at a foreign-only property.
Financial results
Kangwon Land reported full-year 2025 revenue of KRW 1.4767 trillion ($1.01 billion), up 3.5 percent year on year, with gaming revenue reaching KRW 1.3077 trillion ($893 million), a five percent increase. Casino visitor numbers in the fourth quarter of 2025 came in at 617,907.
Profit figures told a different story. Operating profit fell 17.7 percent to KRW 235.2 billion ($160.8 million), while net profit dropped 30.7 percent to KRW 316.5 billion ($216.4 million). The company has not provided a detailed breakdown of cost drivers behind the decline in its publicly available disclosures, though the period coincides with a significant ramp-up in capital spending commitments.
Redevelopment timeline
With construction set to begin in April 2026 and the broader K-HIT programme running to 2035, the renovation forms an early-phase deliverable within a decade-long rebuild. The second casino project, approved last September, represents the most structurally significant component of that programme, but the accommodation upgrades will determine the near-term guest experience at the resort as other works proceed.
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