The Holiday Inn (now Hotel Holiday) in Sarajevo is one of the city’s most recognisable modern landmarks, originally built in the early 1980s as part of the preparations for the 1984 Winter Olympics. Designed by Sarajevo architect Ivan Štraus, it was intended to project a fresh, international image for the city and quickly became a symbol of that Olympic era.
Its location is one of the reasons it stood out so clearly: it sits in the centre of Sarajevo, close to key government buildings, major institutions, and the main business district. That made it a highly visible address both in peacetime and later during the city’s most difficult years.
During the Siege of Sarajevo, the hotel took on a very unusual role. Because of its position on one of the city’s most exposed avenues, it became a kind of front-line base for journalists and foreign correspondents reporting on the war, while the building itself was also affected by the conflict around it. In that period, it was far more than a hotel; it was part shelter, part newsroom, and part witness to the siege.
Back then it was frequently visible in international TV reporting. Today it functions as a normal hotel again and can be booked like any other city-centre property. It remains well known not just for accommodation, but for the remarkable history attached to the building and its place in Sarajevo’s modern story.
Hotel Holiday (formerly Holiday Inn)
Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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