Symbolic Sarajevo Holiday Inn reopens

Sarajevo’s Holiday Inn hotel, used by war reporters as a base during the Sarajevo siege, reopened yesterday after being closed for over a year.

“We are happy to announce that the hotel will start working again on 20 July, and the official opening ceremony will be organised on 20 August,” the hotel’s management posted on its Facebook page.

Although the hotel quickly became iconic after its opening the year before the 1984 Winter Olympics, not least because of its unusual architecture, it is best known for serving as a base for journalists during the Siege of Sarajevo when the city was besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska from 5 April 1992 – 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War. The building withstood many shellings.

The hotel has now been bought by Bosnian businessman Rasim Bajrović, who owns several large hotels in Sarajevo. While during the Yugoslav-era it was state-owned, the Holiday Inn was bought in 2003 by Austrian businessman Jakob Keuss, but the business was declared bankrupt in June 2014, despite continuing to operate illegally for some time after.

Source: Balkan Insight