Did you know this about your Berjaya Hotel?

Reykjavík Marina

The Reykjavík Marina hotel building used to be an old paint factory, a carpentry shop and a dry-dock warehouse. So a true landmark of the Reykjavík harbour! It was redesigned into a hotel by THG Architects and has 108 rooms. The curved building has interior design that bows to the history of the location with photographs and artifacts from its time as a harbourside building: old shipping receipts, rope knots, . The hotel was christened only one night before it’s opening party.

Reykjavík Natura

The historic World Chess Championship Match 1972, or “The Match of all Time”, between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and the defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union created enormous worldwide interest and put the name of Iceland thoroughly on the world map.  

The towering legacy of this match is now enshrined in an exhibition at the hotel where Bobby Fischer stayed during the event, Hotel Loftleidir, now Berjaya Reykjavik Natura Hotel. The installation features an array of memorabilia; chess board, posters, photographs and the saga of Bobby Fischer, the art of chess and the hotel as a historic chess venue.  The Gimli Suite at Berjaya Reykjavík Natura Hotel is locally known as "the Bobby Fischer" suite. Fischer stayed in the Gimli Suite during the competition. Decades after the match, seeking to avoid deportation to the United States, Bobby accepted an offer of Icelandic citizenship. Politics aside, this was a gesture of gratitude on behalf of the people of Iceland for his genius and for the country's role in the competition. Upon his return he stayed, once again, in the Gimli Suite for many months.

Klaustur

Berjaya Hotel Klaustur was built was built in 1994 as a community effort. Back then tourism in Iceland was not as big an industry as it is today and the government authorities would not contribute into the building of a hotel in Kirkjubaejarklaustur, so what did the town do? They built it all together – in the true Icelandic viking spirit! The manager of the hotel Sveinn Jensen calls the property a  ”community hotel”.

Akureyri

The Berjaya Akureyri Hotel building was built in 1966 and the premises used to be educational facilities. In 2010 the University moved to their permanent location at Sólborg and the hotel was opened in  June 2011. Around 15 000 students have conducted their studies in the building, so there are a lot of people that have memories of studying there and really appreciate that they can come and stay as guests at the same place. The hotel wants to commemorate that it was a school before by naming the lobby area  ,,Stofa 14“ or ,,classroom 14“. Stofa 14 was the largest lecture room in the school.

Mount Sulur - the local mountain, like Esja in Reykjavík – is featured in the lobby where there is a huge photo of an expedition to Mount Sulur in the year 1900. It was an expedition from the DMI – Danish meterological institute – for studying the northern lights.  Danish painter Harold Moltke painted  oil canvases of the northern lights and the hotel has lithographs of the paintings in the dining room.