Fly Me to My Room
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This article originally appeared in The Culture Issue of APEX Experience.
Guests first experience Icelandair’s Hotel ReykjavÃk Marina through Slippbarinn, the first cocktail bar in Iceland. Food and beverage manager Ãsgeir Már Björnsson would only confirm that pedigree with a quiet “more or less” as he slides over a perfect Old Fashioned, cooled by a massive chunk of ice that could well have been pulled from Jökulsárlón, the famous glacier lagoon full of icebergs. For a guy whose business card reads “Mix Master Flex,” Björnsson is a rather humble fellow.
Slipping into Slippbarinn to escape the frigid winds blowing off Faxaflói Bay, guests find themselves in a sleek, modern space surrounding a circular bar. This is where Björnsson and his internationally experienced team hold court. Icelandair has struck gold: Slippbarinn routinely has over 300 people inside – and a queue outside – come closing time, according to Björnsson.
Björnsson says that the hotel has leveraged its connection to an international airline to gather world-class talent. “We have been importing guest bartenders from all around the world,” he says, “and we continue to do that.” The Chosen Ones, Slippbarinn’s signature cocktails, pay tribute to the cocktail alchemists who have worked their magic with Björnsson’s team.
“Icelandair Hotels and Icelandair are sister companies, belonging to Icelandair Group,” said Guðlaugur Kristmundsson, sales manager for Icelandair Hotels. “Both brands use Icelandic experience as part of their branding.” Icelandair specializes in bringing the epic scope of Iceland’s landscape into relatively small spaces. While its Hekla Aurora aircraft treats passengers to an internal Aurora Borealis show by way of a customized lighting system, Icelandair hotels feature immersive murals displaying the country’s rugged beauty.
Icelandair is not alone in bringing airborne hospitality down to earth. In the early ’90s, Japan Airlines launched Hotel JAL City to complement its domestic flight network, giving business travelers a spacious and well-connected place to stay when they landed. JAL Hotels currently operates in 11 of these destinations. Just this year, Sir Richard Branson’s megacorporation opened its first Virgin Hotel in a converted Chicago bank building. With Virgin having branded everything from airlines to soda pop to hot-air balloons, the only surprise was how long it took the company to get into the hotel game.
“Design is critical,” notes Branson. “There’s just a feeling you get when you walk into a Virgin property. Design is what sets it apart.” The Virgin Group specializes not in reinventing the wheel, but in resurrecting old-school glamor by way of modern design and technology, essentially telling its customers, “Baby, you’re a star!”
Qatar Airways is also getting involved in the hospitality game as the proud owner of three hotel properties: Sheraton Skyline at London Heathrow, Oryx Rotana in Doha and The Airport Hotel at Hamad International – all of which continue to operate under their existing name brands.
The airline-hotel connection has a longer history. In the ’70s, Belgium’s Sabena Airlines owned the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, which appears in the documentary Shake Hands With the Devil and the film Hotel Rwanda. Although Sabena is now defunct, the Hôtel des Mille Collines is still around, but under new ownership, who’s keen to leave the past behind.
Airlines have long been innovating the delivery of customer service in challenging conditions, so it’s interesting to see what they do when they have more – and a more stationary – space to play.