Innvision's 20th Anniversary: Reflecting Back & Looking Forward
Time flies when you’re having fun!
As we celebrate Innvision’s 20 years of providing interior design and FF&E to the hospitality industry, it seems two decades have passed quickly. Yet, we have grown and learned valuable lessons that can only come through sustained effort, experience, and a perspective built by time.
In this post, Innvision co-founders Walter Jones (Chairman) and Chris Parker (President) discuss industry changes, key learnings, and exciting opportunities ahead.
Brand Influence
Back in 2004, we noticed hotel brands beginning to play a more prominent role than they had previously, taking much firmer control over their product and raising the bar. Deservedly, brands wanted more say over what was going into their hotels, which simplified the procurement business and streamlined the distribution of hotel FF&E.
Today, the hospitality industry continues to be guided by a robust system of franchises. Innvision was fortunate to establish itself as a trusted provider to numerous hotel franchisors in the early days and remain in good stead with them over time as preferred suppliers within their systems. This has been a boon to Innvision’s growth and prosperity.
A Different Service Model
The competitive landscape in hospitality procurement and interior design has always demanded that providers differentiate themselves in how they create value for hoteliers. Therefore, from Innvision’s earliest days, we knew we had to create something new that the market needed.
We developed a nationwide team of field-based design and procurement consultants who visit our clients and job sites at key stages to provide the industry’s most hands-on project support. Their internal counterparts in project management and logistics, credit, accounting, and sales tax remittance, with advanced tools and technologies at their fingertips, ensure the rest of a procurement project flows smoothly. No other competitor in the industry is built this way at Innvision’s scale.
The Increasing Role of Design
We recognized the need to raise our game a few years after opening our doors. Our interior design capabilities at the time were adequate for limited-service brands, but we could not get design approval to work on any full-service or lifestyle brands. Therefore, in 2011, we started-up Innvision Design and began to bring over an impressive group of designers from highly respected stand-alone hospitality design firms.
As we grew, we added more design talent, moved into a bigger space, upgraded our software, and launched ID Studio in 2016.
Today, we are very proud of ID Studio, our team of 17 hospitality interior designers, their expanding project portfolio, and the growing relationships and recognition ID Studio has with hotel brand design teams. ID Studio now offers interior design to an increasingly sophisticated set of lifestyle, full-service, and select-service brands and properties.
Resilience
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and the Global Health Crisis of 2020-2023 were devastating to the world economy. Although cycles are to be expected, few could have anticipated the depth of these downturns. Many in the US hospitality industry are still building back their businesses from when they stopped in their tracks over four years ago.
At Innvision, we are fortunate to have emerged from both the GFC and the pandemic as a financially sound company with a team and infrastructure geared for growth. This speaks to our resilience, capabilities, and strong collaborations and partnerships internally and externally. We are grateful to our clients, team members, and vendor partners to be where we are today.
Although the US hospitality industry currently faces challenges in various forms, with business and international inbound travel still on the rise, a strong overall economy, healthy supply and demand fundamentals, and other positive drivers, we find plenty of additional reasons to be excited about the future of the lodging market in 2024 and well beyond.
With 20 years of experience and growth, Innvision will continue to evolve and seek ways to improve to remain a leader in hospitality design and FF&E procurement. We see a bright future ahead and would be honored to support you. If you’re ready to start your next hotel project, contact us today!
