The opening of a new luxury hotel in Finland's capital Helsinki is bringing a quality of hospitality to the city that travelers and locals are craving.
Fully open since June, the 117-room Hotel Maria is located in Kruununhaka, the oldest residential area of the city. The hotel also has 38 suites, a 100-person ballroom and a fine-dining restaurant, Lilja, which mixes French and Finnish flavors.
Five years in the making, the independent hotel is the first for Samppa Lajunen, founder of Samla Capital and chairman of the board of the hotel. Lajunen, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in Nordic skiing and ski jumping, started Samla Capital in 2015. The company has other real estate interests, but this is its first hotel venture.
Samla — “Sam” from Samppa, “la” from Lajunen — bought the buildings in 2019, and construction began in 2020, right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Despite the pandemic and the rise in construction costs resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the hotel’s construction timeline kept on schedule.
Hotel Maria opened in two phases. The first two buildings of the hotel opened on Dec. 15, 2023. The Liisankatu 8A and Maneesikatu buildings were the last two completed and opened.
Three of the four buildings date to 1885, while the other one dates to 1930. The original use for the older buildings was as accommodation for senior-ranking military personnel and their families; the properties even included an officers’ club. After 1925, the buildings were used as residences for some years, but mostly they have been used as offices of Finland’s ministry of agriculture.
The project needed approval from the Museovirasto, or the Finnish Heritage Agency, which is responsible for preserving important architecture and buildings in the country.
Natural light, an important consideration in all Nordic nations, takes focus in the hotel's architecture and design. Glass-sided corridors were constructed to join the Hotel Maria's four buildings to one another. Neutral colors make up the design palette.
New Nordic needs
Heli Mende, the hotel’s commercial director, said the hotel has come at the right time for the Finnish capital. While there are upscale hotels in Helsinki, none are at the level of the Maria, which provides luxury services, such as 24-hour room service, she said. The hotel’s concierge, Sami Joutsenvuo, is the president of the Finnish division of global concierge association Les Clefs d’Or.
“In the Nordic countries, there is a strong self-service culture, but there is room for our level of luxury,” she said, adding the number of suites at Hotel Maria is high for the market. “Nineteen of them have a sauna or a steam room, which are spacious,” she added.
Initially, the demand for that level of service was Finnish, but Mende expects the percentage of international guests to increase and is already seeing that begin to happen.
Helsinki as a hospitality and tourism market is seeing its demand levers change, Mende said.
“The U.S. is the No. 1 market, the [United Kingdom] the second, and this summer we saw international bookings from 61 countries,” she said.
Lajunen discussed different concepts for the Hotel Maria but saw demand for a luxury hotel, Mende said.
“Helsinki was booming before 2020, and there was a lack of high-end hotels. There was a clear need,” Mende said, adding that locals, too, use the hotel for such things as breakfast and Saturday afternoon high tea.
The Helsinki hospitality market and Finland as a whole have also suffered from the ban on Russian travelers to Finland and the end of air routes to Asia that previously crossed Russian airspace. Mende said new market demand has redressed that loss.
The Finnair flight from Helsinki to Tokyo that took nine hours, mostly traveling across Russia, now takes 14 hours, but Mende said this appears not to be putting off visitors from Japan.
Helsinki’s tourism executives are looking to extend its season, with winter travelers to the country more likely to travel to Lapland with its associations with Christmas than to the capital. Mende said hotel offerings such as the Hotel Maria are important additions to attract such business.
Other new hotels in Helsinki this year include the 224-room NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa, the first for the brand in Finland. The property opened on May 16 in two buildings: a 1910 building housing students, and the Seurahuone, which was Helsinki's oldest continuously operating hotel. The Seurahuone first opened in 1833 in Helsinki's market square but moved to this site in 1913.
The 164-room Solo Sokos Hotel Pier 4 is the newest hotel in Helsinki. It opened on Sept. 3 in a harborside location in Katajanokka, the neighborhood adjacent to the Hotel Maria and NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa. It also has a rooftop bar and deck named Humu.