Danish Sales & Marketing Manager Micky Christensen & Swedish General Manager of the hotel Kristina Fredberg-Woods
Berjaya Eden Park Hotel – Scandinavian appeal interlaced with British charm By Nia Kajastie | Photos: Silje Glefjell & Berjaya Eden Park Hotel
A welcoming Victorian hotel located in the heart of London with a traditionally English pub serving a wide assortment of tasty ales – what could be more British than that? But Berjaya Eden Park Hotel has a lot more to offer than meets the eye, as it is part of the Malaysian-owned Berjaya Group as well as being currently under Scandinavian management. So it is a big dollop of British charm mixed with Scandinavian know-how and customer service finished off with an undercurrent of Malaysian cuisine – are you intrigued yet? Walking from Bayswater Underground station on a hot July afternoon, it was almost impossible to miss Berjaya Eden Park Hotel. Only a minute away from the station, it is in a perfect location, just
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second biggest segment “Our is the Scandinavian market ” walking distance from tourist favourites like Notting Hill, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. In the bright weather, the hotel’s facade looked inviting and fresh with a nice terraced seating area just in front, perfect for drinks outside on such a lovely day. Inside, the lobby definitely had a distinctively British feel to it, but the people awaiting me were most certainly Scandinavian: the Swedish General Manager of the hotel, Kristina Fredberg-Woods and the Danish Sales & Marketing Manager, Micky Christensen. In the hotel’s cosy pub, we had a chat about the unique aspects of the establishment’s cultural blend.
“The layout of the hotel is fundamentally British, so we do get a lot of British guests, but then again our second biggest segment is the Scandinavian market. We are doing everything we can to cater to that market and to accommodate their needs. And because we are both from that market, we know a lot about what makes that particular segment tick,” Christensen explains. Fredberg-Woods adds: “We offer Scandinavian-style service, but we also maintain the Britishness of the hotel, and this is very much appreciated by our guests.” High expectations and standards The Berjaya Group took over the property 13 years ago, and it has been under the same management, including GM Kristina