Sigurlaug Sverrisdóttir

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I am here with Sigurlaug. It’s so nice to see you in person or on Zoom, and excited to have this conversation with you. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Sigurlaug Sverrisdóttir: Thank you. I’m so excited as well and very honored that you’re interested in my story.

SSR: Oh, we love your story. I’m so excited to dive in. Okay, so we always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

SS: I grew up in Iceland in suburb from Reykjavik, the capital, in a very small town with the ocean all around it. And yeah, very, very fairly simple upbringing. My parents, my father was a sailor, my mother she worked for the government in the town, so she was working next to the school. And I would go there in the town office every day. And my father was often away and they both worked for the same companies or same place their whole life. They both worked there for 50 years or whatever. And my father, who is still alive, he’s 81 years old, he still goes to have lunch with them every now and then to see the people that he was working with in the shipping company.

SSR: That’s amazing. And what were you like as a kid?

SS: I had a lot of energy. I was in gymnastics and in a lot of sports actually, and very sportive, very active. And of course growing up in Iceland these days, I mean nobody would lock their doors or cars or whatever. And the kids were just running around and you would just wait until you heard your mother’s voice, “It’s dinner time, come in. Where are you?” And you’d be, “Okay, I have to go in and get some dinner and then I come back out.” And we were always playing everywhere. And we played a lot also just in the, because I live by the ocean, just on the beach, which is of course a rocky beach. And in Iceland you don’t go in the ocean because it’s cold.

But we would have things like games because in those days, of course, if a whale deceases, would get sick and dies and then they come on shore, they would be washed on shore. And so we would go down, we would find one, and then we were experimenting and we even, we didn’t have trampolines at the time, but we were jumping on a dead whale to see who would be, because they were very slippery, to see who would be the last one to fall. That was the winner, who was the last one standing on a slippery whale jumping.

SSR: That’s crazy.

SS: Yeah. This is, exactly… Coming from this and always very close to nature, obviously with this-

SSR: Well, yeah, that’s the understatement. Yeah, very close to nature. And did you have a love or did your family ever travel or was there any early hospitality bug or anything in you that you could say now looking back, helped you have this love that you have now for your career?

SS: No, I think what came from the early years before I was 20 was all this, it was nature. My parents would only travel in Iceland and most of the people were just traveling in Iceland at the time. We only had one international airport. And people, they wouldn’t travel abroad so frequently. We would travel a lot inland and I would go fishing with them quite a lot. And that I have kept as well. I do fly-fishing today, and this is very, for me, like a meditation kind of a sport to do. And of course hiking and all of this, you would just always inland and you would stay in a tent and you would camp and go to a summer house and things.

But it wasn’t until I was, after I graduated, after I finished school, 21 years old, I started working for an airline, Icelandic airline that… It’s a different kind of business, ACMI they call it in this. It’s like aircraft crew maintenance insurance, and they would rent it to other airlines. We were working for Saudi Arabian Airlines a lot. I moved to Saudi Arabia.

That was my first… Yes. And you can imagine I had hardly left home and coming there you were just like, “Okay, where am I?” And a complete different, of course culture and everything. And there we would be operating for Saudi Arabia Airlines and we would be flying all over Asia and Africa. That’s where it started. And then I was with them for 17 years almost In that business. I was traveling more or less. I mean I was just abroad and living in hotels more or less from the age of 20 to 30.

SSR: And what were you doing for them?

SS: First, I started as crew, cabin crew, then I was in training, and then I was also a base manager because this company would move a lot and set up new bases. I would maybe go and set up a new base in Nigeria for example, and in Tehran. And you would go there and you would start up the base and prepare everything, maybe hire people, local people. I was in India for example, for six months without leaving and just you had to go in there, you had to hire the people, then train them, get everything ready, deal with the hotels. And I was living in a Kempinski Hotel in Mumbai.

SSR: Why not?

SS: Everybody in the hotel knew you and you knew everything. And then you would move from a hotel to a hotel. And yeah, it was very obviously, as a 21-year-old going out in the world going into something like this, I mean it’s enormous opportunities to learn about cultures because also we were 49 nationalities working for this company as well. We were always with this cultural difference with the languages and all sorts of barriers that you learned and being like I was the head of the department then later on with 5,500 employees in 40 countries or spread all over the world so you can imagine and all the things. And these people were not only working together because they were not working 9 to 5, they also lived together. And that’s where you bring in a lot of things. People bring in them.

And so I studied a lot Hofstede. Hofstede, he was working for IBM and he had these theories, I think it’s called The Hofstede Theories in English. Because you had to learn about all the cultures, how they think, and to puzzle them together and to know who could work with the others and without having too big of arguments and issues that would come up. And so I think I learned a lot there both from this. And also to be like, I was young, blonde, Icelandic woman, and I was the big boss and I was in India and I was in Saudi Arabia and I was in Nigeria never dealing with a woman on the other side of the table in the same position in those days especially. And it’s like ’95. That was a big…

And then you learned also how to use… I was working a lot with of course the Arabic culture. I would have my assistant, he was an Arabic man so I could get him to do this meeting, da, da, da, so he would get things through for me. We had to work it like this. You couldn’t just go and say, “Hey, this is how it’s supposed to be.” And you really had to… Yeah, it was a huge lesson.

SSR: I’m sure it was. 

SS: Yeah. This was after school. This was the biggest probably university I did, even though I did study Bachelor of Finance in university. And then I was also just living in hotels all over the world. And often you were traveling, da, da, da, and you were confused. I mean we were all over Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa, in South America. We were just in North America, Europe, you were always changing locations and starting something new. Africa…

And in those days also, there wasn’t that much of, this before Design Hotels is even a concept. All of the hotels were just huge corporations and the Kempinski I would said it was just the big, big chains. And what was so interesting to me was because I was maybe waking up in India and I knew that on the menu I would on… Because you were waking up at all hours also because you were traveling, so you always knew the room service menu. Sometimes you were just too tired, you’d be just like, “Okay, I got in here, what can I get?” Okay, you can get the club sandwich, you can get the tomato soup, and it is always the same menu, wherever you were in the world. And I was like, now I’m in India, why isn’t there Indian food? It’s the best food in the world. And then when you’re… They don’t serve club salads-

SSR: Nor should they.

SS: Yeah. Those things were… And everything always the same, always standardized, of course, it’s a certain approach and certain aspect, I’m not putting it down because obviously we know that the biggest brands in the world that have made the best McDonald’s they work for, it’s all the same standard in every single country where you go to. And that works. I’m not saying that. But this is before, there’s no… What I felt in my travels, it was lacking that I would get the connection with where I was. I was a bit like you are in somewhere in a very poor country or city I was in Lahore. And you look outside your window and you’re just like … It’s just too much disconnection to everything. Then at least embrace your culture in the menu, in the art, in the TV channels, it was just CNN. Yeah, I think that’s where sort of my idea with the ION came from the beginning. I think that is the… Because there’s always this pre-story, da, da, da, to where we always have this path of our lives where we have built them.

SSR: Yeah, 100%. Did you have time to explore the areas that you were living in and was there one that you caught your interest or that you loved the most?

SS: I have to say yes, I did get the chance because often we were for some time and the opportunity came because we were always working with local people. We came in and I was often hiring locals. And that’s when you really get to know the culture. And I was also in Tehran in 2007. That was just after they opened, of course after the Persian War in ’98, whatever, they had closed. The Persian people had not, or the Iranian Arabic people, Muslims had not had chance to go to Mecca because they’re supposed to do every year. And so there was lots of people waiting to… And then they opened after, they closed everything during the war, the Persian War, and then they opened again there in 2007. I was there and I came in there without, I came in there with one other guy from the company and we were just like, okay.

The Consulate was helping us. We got a little assistance there, but we were just starting from scratch and we had to advertise in the papers, hire some local, because we needed the Farsi-speaking crew to be with us because we were starting the flights. I tried to speak to Iran Air and get them to help, but of course they were doing it themselves as well for the first time. We were like the competitors. They were like, “No, no.” Yeah, that was tough. And also coming into actually hiring people in these areas where you need to have the trust as well. It’s a lot of young girls that wanted to become a flight attendant and work for us and we’re an Icelandic company. And then you can imagine their families, their fathers are like, “What? No.” You had to… Sometimes you would have them with them in the interviews and you were like… You can imagine.

Yeah, no, of course, because you are convincing them that we are… You don’t just send your daughter to work for whatever and flying into Saudi and this was all very complicated things that… And then you start, what gives you as well, you get such a wider perspective of the cultures and the world here. Coming from this small town in Iceland, you can imagine where I just ran around, there was nothing like this ever around me in my upbringing. Of course you were just like, you could go wherever you wanted and do whatever, you were always safe and-

SSR: You were thrown feet first into it. Why did you decide to leave the company and did you start ION right after that or was there something in between?

SS: No, no. Everything is a pattern. It was like, yeah, I decided to leave the other company because I was always trying to have children and I have not had any children. And I quit the other company and started my own training company for airlines and things. And I did a lot of work there and we were writing the handbooks and the manuals and everything for the airlines and doing training. And I really… That was like my specialty, I was doing that with another friend. We had a private company that we were just doing for airlines, not only here, in Lithuania.

And then the financial crisis came in Iceland. We had a huge crash in 2008. And my husband at the time, he was also in their company was in this brokerage. They were brokers for airplanes and the engines, etc. After the financial crisis, a lot of things changed. And also it was hard to be in their business in Iceland because we lost all the credibility in the financial world basically because we were, the country was bankrupt and we were on some blacklists and things like that. We decided to move to Switzerland and we decided to move to Switzerland because yeah, we needed to have the company there. It was better for the company, it was better credit, and easier to transfer money because we had the currency embargo in Iceland and it was all very hard to maneuver things in Iceland. And we were basically starting, or they were also starting again. We moved to Switzerland and I had my daughter, she comes for the good, yeah, she’s born in 2010. And then we were just happy there.

We love the mountains, we love skiing, we love nature and so we were just thinking of we want to stay here probably and start out things. And I had some ski chalets and things that I was taking care of and I was marketing and trying to rent out and clean and had my own little… I’m very quick in finding things to do. And then we had a house in Iceland and we were discussing, okay, let’s just… Because after the financing crisis, there was a lot, of course changes and things happening in Iceland. We thought, okay, maybe we should just sell our house and buy a summer house in the area where the first hotel is, ION Adventure. And buy a summer house there because it’s very close to the city and it’s a beautiful area. It’s next to the national park. And the summer houses there, they wouldn’t come for sale because they’re just like, you can’t build everywhere. And they would more or less just go to be inherited or whatever. They wouldn’t so often come for sale.

But there were few for sale there after the financial crisis, so we were like, okay, let’s just… Then we noticed that the government is selling the building where the ION Adventure is now because it was owned by the government, because it was the staff house of the geothermal power plant that is there. We just saw the staff building and we were like, “Okay, they’re selling it. Maybe there’s opportunity.” And that’s where the idea form, maybe we just buy that instead of buying the summer house. And we opened a hotel.

SSR: I mean, why not?

SS: Exactly. And this is in 2011. And then we started 2012, I moved back to Iceland, 2013 we opened. Voila.

SSR: Voila. Here you go. And talk about what you built because I mean, it’s super special. It’s built “into the landscape.” For people that haven’t been there, how would you describe it and what did you want to create when you were starting the process?

SS: It was quite funny. When we were starting the process, there were hardly any hotels outside of Reykjavik that were open in the winter. It was like most hotels, all of the hotels outside of Reykjavik, they were just summer hotels. When we bought this building, and this is close to Reykjavik, it’s very close, it’s like 45 minutes and it’s not that far, but still not in Reykjavik. People just like, “What on earth are you thinking, this is crazy. Who’s going to want to…” But what was happening also, I think what we saw in it as well is that there is, I mean this is next to the national park and there’s so much energy and there’s so much… I mean it’s the most amazing nature around there and beauties.

And of course we have a dormant volcano, there’s lava everywhere and moss, and there is all of the hot water that is coming for to warm up the house in Reykjavik, actually it’s not all of it now, but around Hengill is the volcano that is next to it. And on both sides of this volcano, they have the two power plants and they’re geothermal, they’re green energy. And so what it means is that underneath in the ground there’s water that they dig down and get the water out. When the water comes out, it’s 300 degrees Celsius. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but water will boil at 100, it’s 300 degrees Celsius. And it’s too warm to take it and use it right away. They have to take it and then they have to cool it down. By cooling it down, they get the steam and then they use the steam to make electricity. And once it’s cooled down and cleansed, they send the hot water just hot into Reykjavik to warm up all the houses. We have it straight into our radiators and into our showers.

And so this is a lot of energy in this area, but want to protect it as well. It was a lot of complications when we were doing the extension and doing all of this. And I remember we had, when we were making the, of course, we bought an old house and then we built 1,000 square meters to it and we got … and when we were building, we were only eight meters down in the ground when we had hot water, steam coming up from the ground. And we were like, “Oh no.” And we were trying to do the [foreign language 00:25:29] I don’t know what the thing is, the grounding for the hotel. There was a lot of different challenges there. And of course you’re building on lava, so we had to dig down and fill it up with concrete to get the supports there. That was another learning process in this-

But we did it… Also, when I was growing up here in this area, and actually now I live in a house in my old… My father lives just next door. And this is where all my friends used to live, and this is where I was running around when I was young. I’m back to my core and just next street was my best friend Erla who is actually her and her husband are the architects of the hotel-

SSR: Oh, well that helps.

SS: It was a project that was done with a childhood friend. And so all this energy, I think it comes from putting all this together. And I remember also when I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot of art or design or anything in my home with my parents. There was a lot of knitting and this handcrafted things, homemade, she would be knitting all the time, making these all sorts of handmade things, but not like these design things. And I remember in my friend’s house that her parents, they had Bang & Olufsen stereo, Bang & Olufsen. I was like, “Oh my god.” And I was so intrigued. And I remember they had floors light, I just remember all of these. I was already, as a child, noticing all of these design and in everything was back in elementary. When we started the project with Erla and Tryggvi, they are Minarc in Los Angeles, they live in Los Angeles. And they had already moved to Los Angeles at the time, they were living in Los Angeles. We started the project and of course we just went like… They do everything… I’m sorry, cut this away.

They work a lot with sustainability and they’re very concerned about nature, sustainability, and being authentic, not to use too much. And it was a perfect combination into this area because it was water protected, it’s fragile, but it’s powerful. You really had to… And also the nature is so beautiful. That’s why that building, it’s like it’s floating outside from the mountain. It’s like it’s floating outside with the lava and everything and it’s spectacular. But at the same time it’s blending in with the nature. And that is, I think the beauty in what they do and what they find. And then of course we were just definitely on the same, what are they, wipe service.

And then the interior of course, and I was very, from my travel and all this, I was very particular in that everything had to be Icelandic art, Icelandic design, Icelandic soaps, Icelandic, everything that I could find in the neighborhood and to be proud of. Only Icelandic music, but not like a folk’s music of course. But we have great musicians. I don’t don’t know what it is with Iceland, we are so few, but we have some, I mean Laufey and Bjork and endlessly so many musicians and all classical and I think it has a lot to do with the energy that we get from the nature. And so there is a lot of art and interesting things in Iceland that I felt that was like, or we felt that was absolutely necessary to reflect to our guests so they would know where they are, even though they are in the middle of nowhere somewhere that they would feel like the energy of it. Yeah.

SSR: Yeah, 100%. And really fully immerse yourself into all things Iceland.

SS: That is what you… When I travel also, the reason why I was so happy to work with the locals is that’s what I felt that I was really getting to know the culture. And of course when you work with the locals they would invite you to dinner party or to their home and they would also generally bring food from… And I still have in my fridge actually Harissa that a friend of mine makes because I was living with them in Saudi Arabia and I learned how to eat and use Harissa. I mean, I’d never had that in Iceland. And I had a Tunisian friend too, and his mother was making this and sending it to me because he knew that I was just learning a lot in… Yeah.

SSR: Was there one part of the process that surprised you that you loved the most of building this hotel?

SS: I don’t know. I mean, it wasn’t that easy of course.Yeah, it sounds so romantic but it was not. Believe me, I have a 2-year-old and I was just like, “Ugh.” I was personally responsible to the bank and it was a lot of stress. It was a lot of stress in the beginning as well. But no, but then you, I don’t know, I’ve always also been… I’m a bit spiritual as well. And I also believe, like I said, all of it has been just, you go with the flow a little bit. Of course, I’m a hardcore worker for sure. My father was a sailor and I come from this background where you have to earn your penny.

But at the same time, I think I also listen and yeah, I listen a little bit to my environment and get led to direction. And of course throughout this approach, I mean, wow, for God’s sake, we would never be where we are today without all of the amazing people that have come through that have been with us. We’ve been extremely lucky in that sense. And I have some people, I mean we’ve been open for 11 years and I have some people, I still have five people that are working, that have been working for 10 years. And this is a hotel, and they’re in the management positions and sales. Just started in the lobby and now they’re doing all things. Yeah.

SSR: And how has the hotel evolved over the last 10 years? Or is there anything you’ve decided to change or add? We can get to your City location in a second too, but have you-

SS: We’ve done a lot, we’ve come a long way. And we learned a lot also in the beginning, let’s not forget, this was my first hotel, it was also the architect’s first hotel. There was a lot of things that we learned afterwards and just practice and to keep the cost down and all of these things that you learn and also in durability and things like this. I mean, we have renovated all of the rooms in the hotel once, some twice. And we have developed a lot. And we have actually done an extension now to the ION Adventure. We started with18, then we had 18 in the old big building, then we did 24 rooms, then we added some 3 more, now we added another 22. Now we’re up to 66 rooms and we just finished that extension.

And that’s just coming into practice now. In the beginning, we didn’t have any suites. We had everything in the same, everything was basically in the same size and same. But each and every room had a view. And we were just making sure that we would bring the nature into the room and all this. And now with the extension, we have some large suites, we have junior suites, we have more space and more privacy. And so we have developed it quite a lot now. And that is, we just finished that this summer actually. And we did a new glass building that is amazing. And we’ve had some amazing weddings there. That is really, really surprisingly good for me. But I don’t know, I think I went away from what you say. For me, yeah, I think it’s the journey. It’s the people. It’s the people both that come and visit that you remember. I mean, I’ve met so many, I can’t say it here, you know what I mean, who they are. But there’s been a lot of interesting moments and interesting people that have passed through.

SSR: Yeah, I’m sure. I mean it’s such a special place. And then I know you mentioned sustainability was really important. How do you make sure that you are giving back to the land that you’re on because I know that’s really important to you.

SS: Oh, we are constantly working on this. We have, for example, I mean of course we do as much business with all of the farmers around us as possible and the business not only buying fish and things from them, but they clear the roads for us. They help us if somebody… We are in the middle of nowhere and we are in Iceland. We really need these guys. And every December we have this big Christmas festival with the farmers and their kids. And so I know the farmers, I know their children, I know their families. And even the GM, her husband is a farmer and his family, so she lives in a farm there. And so there’s a huge connection and it’s very important because of where you are and you have to respect it.

We’ve also done things like on the fishing side, there’s a lake next to us and there’s some of the biggest trout that you can catch in the world in this lake and trout. And it’s been preserved there since ice age actually. And the specie, it grows, it grows quite big because you have the hot… The water’s very cold, it’s between two and four degrees. It never gets warmer. And then you have some hot steam coming from underneath the lava and comes up there into the lake. And then the warm part, you have a trout growing bigger. And so we stopped, well, we rented the area where the biggest trout is, and we are renting it out as fly-fishing for catch and release, only because we wanted to stop that they would be killed. And we even pay one of the farmers who gets a lot of money from fishing, we pay him annually for not putting down the nets because when he puts down the nets, he gets also the bigger ones. And we just pay him for that, basically to preserve the fish.

SSR: Amazing. And what have you… It must be so cool to bring people to this area and then let them experience it. Have you developed your own kind of experiences and how do you help people really get to experience Iceland? Especially, I feel like this is full circle for you coming back and where you grew up and with your architecture friends. How then do you continue that hospitality to your guests and let them really experience Iceland?

SS: Yeah, yeah, of course, we have a lot of fancy tours and things that we offer. And then we also have some just hiking just from the doorsteps of the hotel, because you don’t always have to go far. You always feel like you have to. But there are a lot of interesting places, of course, that we take our people. And then quite a few people that come to Iceland, they are self thriving. It’s very easy to drive in Iceland, there’s one Ring Road. And I think that is the best because when you self thriving, you are also looking at the nature because what I always say to our guests, it’s like, “Okay, yeah, you should go there, take a look at this waterfall and go to this hot spring and all this. But please remember on your way, that is the experience. You have to look outside and stop wherever you are, just enjoy the surrounding because the whole thing is actually interesting. Of course, the place that you’re going to is going to be interesting, but don’t forget to experience and to look up from your car on the way and to stop. Just to put your feet on the moss, on a soft moss in the morning, especially when there’s dew on it. I mean, it’s amazing feeling.

Bare feet and to step on it, it’s so soft. You can’t take it because it takes a hundred years to grow. Of course you have to be respectful, but at the same time just to be in it, it’s an amazing feeling. Those are the things because we are, I mean, same in our normal lives as it is when we travel, we’re always in a hurry. And sometimes people forget just to be in the now. And just like Iceland is all about that. You can just drive in nature and you’re just like, “What is this? This is extraordinary.” And especially if you’re coming from New York or somewhere where you always have… I mean, we have, Iceland is 103,000 square kilometers. And to give you an example, it’s like half the size of UK.  It’s like half the size of UK. And just to give you an example, and we are what, 300,000 people, 350,000 people with all the space. To give you an example, I was also living in Switzerland. Switzerland is 41,000 square kilometers, and we are 103,000. There are 8 million that live in Switzerland. You can imagine we have so much space.

SSR: So much space.

SS: We have so much. That’s what we have a lot of, we have space and nature and just so we can just be, when you come to us from… That’s why it’s so important not always just to go to tourist places, but to also experience this when you’re driving to stop somewhere and just experience the quietness, the energy, the beauty, and the nature where you are.

SSR: Then you opened up a boutique hotel in the city. How long was that after you opened this one?

SS: We opened that in 2017.

SSR: And was that just so you had both experiences, both in Reykjavik and…

SS: No, it was a lot of business decisions. Obviously when you come to Iceland, all the flights, because we’re in the middle of Europe and America, all the flights coming from the States, they land at 6 in the morning, around 5, 6 in the morning. And then the airplanes will fly off to Europe at 7 o’clock and they will pick up the Europeans and they arrive at 4 o’clock. And then it’s like a hub. And so when people are coming to Iceland and to go to the Adventure Hotel is one more hour from Reykjavik, and you still have half an hour, 45 minutes from Reykjavik to the airport. It’s like you always want to, when you come to Iceland, everybody wants to stop maybe one night in Reykjavik, even though they’re going to see the nature.

I mean, Reykjavik is a bustling, even though we are few, we have so much art and food and delicate… We are just like, I mean, walking in Reykjavik, you wouldn’t think that you were in a city there’s so few people. No, no, no, no. We are very cultivated. And it’s an interesting city. The idea was that that would serve, if you’re flying out seven in the morning, you will be there the night before because it’s shorter to the airport, etc.

Yeah, like a sister company or sister hotel that will take care of this, the nights that you are in Reykjavik. And there we have this amazing restaurant. We have a Michelin restaurant called OX, and then we have a Michelin recommended restaurant, Sumac, which is also the Lebanese kind of cuisine with the Icelandic ingredients. And that’s a very popular one amongst the locals.

SSR: Yeah. It’s nice. And you also get to extend your brand to the city and elsewhere. Is there plans to do any more hotels?

SS: We already have two more actually.

SSR: That’s exciting. Where are they?

SS: One in Reykjavik is called Hotel Von. Von means hope. And it’s because in that house, it was the first actually shop in Reykjavik. It was a butcher, so it’s the oldest business, trading business in Reykjavik was in that house. And the house was called Von, the house named Von. And there was a local one and everything on it, it was a small house. And now we have it’s 52 rooms in Reykjavik. And then Covid came and there’s been… Now we are actually probably going to rebrand it again, and it will probably be ION Von.

SSR: Love it. And why another one in Reykjavik, and how are you going to make this different than the other?

SS: The other is 18 rooms. Having 18 rooms hotel is, yeah, that’s a tough business. You have the same base cost in so many things. 18 rooms is hard to make it work, but it can because we have others. One supports the other. The other is 52 rooms, and that’s a much bigger unit, but it also has a different, it’s on a different category. Like ION City is very high end, very unique rooms. You have a sauna, you have a junior suite with a sauna on your balcony, and you’re sitting on the main shopping street of Reykjavik it’s like-

SSR: That’s cool.

SS: Yeah. And you have the suite, the panorama suite with these views. But we only have 18 rooms there, but they’re beautiful, beautiful rooms. And then we have 52 rooms in the other one, it’s a little lower prices, so we’re not in the same price range. They’re not members of Design Hotels, but they may become, I’m thinking Marriott tribute or possibly some other affiliation with the branding, just looking at it. Then we used to own 50% in Hotel Budir, which is on Snaefellsnes, which is one of the oldest… And you might have seen picture, if you’ve seen pictures of the black church at Snaefellsnes next to that hotel. We recently just took that over as well and made the extension and we were doing some renovations and things there as well. And that is a beautiful, beautiful location.

SSR: And where is that exactly?

SS: That’s at Snaefellsnes. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but that’s by the ocean also in a national park. And it’s inside of the national park. But only reason is it has been there, that we were allowed to make the extension and renovations but otherwise you can’t build anything in there because it’s in the national park. Snaefellsnes is a very unique location. Amazing.

SSR: Do you think you’ll kind of compliment what you did at ION Adventure? Will this be an entirely different kind of creation?

SS: No, no. It has its own character and own history and story, and it’s one of the oldest hotels. No, it would be nothing. It has its own charm on a completely different level. It has to just keep that. It is the queen. It’s the queen, it’s like you can’t do anything to the queen. You just have to allow her to stand and yeah, and have her own-

SSR: Love it. And is there one part of the process now that you’re really loving as you expand?

SS: Yeah, of course. To also to have the diversity. And of course it is a different business, of course, when you have more than when you just had one, then you were just like, ugh. But it is also a little bit more, it is easier in a way because you are no longer in every single job and in every single… It’s bigger and you can afford to hire more people and you can afford to do it differently and more structure. It’s more of, yeah, it’s a bigger company, definitely. Adventure is always my baby. That’s always, that’s where you’re just start the whole thing. That is where my heart and soul is in.

SSR: Right. And as you grow, I mean your role, you have more challenges come on. Are you learning more about the business of hospitality… As you grow, are there new challenges that you’re facing right now or just looking at the opportunities?

SS: Oh, definitely. You’re always developing. I’ve learned so much. My God, I didn’t know anything when I started. Only had ideas how I wanted it to look and be and be. But there’s a lot more to it of course, in just running it. Yes, I think we have been quite good and also just we were lucky and in some respect or clever or whatever, when we started, we were spot on and we were early. We were like Adventure Hotel in the middle of nowhere. This is early. People were just like, “You are crazy. Who’s going to want to stay there? Why don’t they just go to Reykjavik?” And we’re like, “No, they know they want to stay in the nature.” And people were like, we were a bit early with this idea, but now it’s normal. Now everybody, of course, they want to be as remote as possibly.

And so that wasn’t when we were actually starting. That has changed, of course, a lot so we were early in that. But in the same thing in the development, I think things are moving so much more into just from when I was younger. I mean, when people travel now, they travel for a completely different reason. They want to experience more, they want to learn, and they want to also do it for good health. You don’t want to come back from your vacation feeling more stressed than when you left. You are looking to rewind and you are looking to detach and to learn and to expand yourself in so many ways. Yeah, I think people are doing this and all this health-related and more healthy-related spiritual and music and things. This is all getting more and more relevant.

SSR: Which is good for you because as you said, you were ahead of the game, so now you’re just in it.

SS: In the beginning. Now I’m just in it. And now I also, we have to develop and develop all the time. You have to learn. And now I’m like, things are going so fast. I’m always learning from everyone else. I’m like, oh God. Some of my employees, when we went to this Design Hotel something, I don’t know three years ago, whatever, and there was this, I mean, I had never heard about ChatGPT. Now it’s just like, it is everything. You really have to be-

SSR: To stay on top of things.

SS: And it changes as well. This is great because I have a great team. And then you have to be able to connect also with… You have to be up-to-date on what’s happening, and you also have to be relevant with the younger generation and what they want. And we have been lucky in that we’ve had a lot of musicians in Iceland that are interested. And that helps us also to have… Because obviously we are not, I mean, 85, 90% of our clients are, or 80% of our clients are foreigners. But we still want to connect with the locals as well to have… It’s also nice because especially with the restaurants, because when you’re traveling also you want to see the locals. You want to be around also, not only other tourists, but you also want to learn about the culture and everything through them.

SSR: Besides the interesting changes that you’ve seen in the industry and having to evolve, what has been your greatest lesson learned through your entire career, your greatest lesson learned or your greatest takeaway?

SS: Yeah. Oh, that is a big question. I think I would say, yeah, if I were to speak to someone that was starting, just don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t underestimate the… Because all of the things that you have learned yourself and have taken into, because when you are an entrepreneur or when you have a drive and you have a vision, but we also always have in the beginning, you’re like, you’re not sure. And it takes time to understand, oh, it was it right. It was right. It doesn’t come in one year or two. It takes a little bit longer, actually, if you’re doing something like this. Absolutely just have hope, but of course, we also have to have responsibility and common sense in everything as well. There is financial matters, etc., that are challenging in everything like this.

But I also think it is important, because we are also evolving and learning in the process, is to have done something for yourself. I used to also work, I worked a lot when I was working for this airline, and I was all over and I worked 24 hours. And even one of my friends that were we always went together for vacations, when we would go for a vacation, quite often, skiing. Very often when I was working crazy for the airline, every vacation I would be sick because my immune system would just crash because I was overworked. And just when you start your own company, it’s going to be the same. You are going to work even harder, but you’re doing it for your dream and in the end it’s so much more. Yeah. It just gives you more in the end, whether you… Of course, you don’t want to overdo yourself and you have to know how to balance and of course, be clever in getting good people with you and you don’t do anything on your own. And yeah, I guess that’s at least what came to my mind now. Believe in yourself. I think sometimes people forget that, right? You question it. And I think it’s what stops people. If you don’t second guess yourself, you might just [go the wrong way]. Your responsibilities is to take care. But it’s important.

SS: When I started it’s like, oh, you are so young, you’re too young, you don’t know. And then all of a sudden you’re not so young anymore, then you’re too old. And I’m like, when was I ever the correct age? When was I ever at the correct place, at the correct time? I don’t think it ever happened.

SSR: Well, thank you so much. It was such a joy to speak with you. I hope we get to meet in person one day, and thanks for taking the time.

SS: Absolutely. Thank you so much.