US-based travel site offers to pay for Kim Jong Un’s hotel stay during summit

Look, Kim Jong Un likes to live large, and no amount of crushing hunger suffered by his own citizens is going to change his baller lifestyle. And if the price of a (theoretically) denuclearized Korean peninsula is a few unpaid-for summit nights at the posh Fullerton or St. Regis hotels, who’s going to deny him?

Even if host country Singapore does pick up the bill now that Uncle Sam has passed on the honor, it’s worth doing for the sake of world peace, right? But what if we didn’t have to? What if say… a publicity-seeking Florida-based hotel booking service agreed to pick up the dear leader’s tab?

Per Newsweek, Tim Hentschel, co-founder and chief executive of HotelPlanner.com, has offered to do just that, saying his company will cover Kim’s accommodation and meal expenses after seeing a report last Friday about the billing issue. The catch is that the dictator’s choices are limited to hotels available on the site.

Alas, the Fullerton Hotel is not a partner with Hotel Planner. Luckily, The St. Regis is! Which makes for a perfect arrangement, given that the authorities have already designated a special controlled zone around the Orchard Road hotel for the June 12 US-North Korea summit.

And Hentschel is serious about this modest proposal. He told Newsweek that his company faxed a letter with the offer to North Korea via the country’s embassy in China, and is just waiting to hear back.

“He should go with the hotels on our list. We’re used to working with dignitaries, anybody who demands high-level privacy and security,” Hentschel said to the publication. “We will definitely make sure he gets the best room the hotel has to offer.”

Considering the North Korean leader’s penchant for swanky things and “7-star” parties, there’s no doubt that he and his entourage will be racking up bills. That hasn’t fazed the Hotel Planner CEO, who hasn’t set a cost cap.

“I mean, who doesn’t want world peace, right?”

Earlier this week, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons offered to pick up Kim’s tab using the money they won from their Nobel Peace Prize last year. So far, the Singapore government has yet to take up its offer, so it looks like the historic summit will most likely be settled with taxpayer money after all.