By Danielle Schalk
Toronto-based InnVest Hotels has a long and rich history in Canada’s hotel industry, which began in 1978 with a single Journey’s End Motel. In the decades since, the company has gone through several iterations on its way to becoming the multi-faceted hospitality player it is today and the largest owner and operator of hotels in Canada.
From that first property, Hotelier’s Company of the Year, grew its presence in the market and eventually went public in 1986 as Journey’s End Corporation. It went on to acquire Commonwealth Hospitality and a 50-per-cent stake in Choice Hotels Canada in the early ʼ90s. Then, in 1999, the company (then Unihost) was acquired by Goldman Sachs and the Westmont Hospitality Group before being taken public again, as InnVest REIT, in 2002.
The company became InnVest Hotels after its acquisition by Bluesky Hotels in 2016 and since this time, InnVest has worked to re-define its corporate strategy, with a focus on vertical integration and developing its internal culture.
As part of this pursuit, the company began to internalize management of its hotel operations in 2019 with the establishment of InnVest Hotels Management Limited (now iHotels Management).
Adding the majority of the company’s owned properties to the roster, as well as a number of third-party contracts, iHotels now manages more than 85 hotels.
And, as Lydia Chen, president and CEO of InnVest Hotels notes, the company has continued to make a number of key changes to its business model in recent years.
Continuing its pursuit of a vertical integration model, the company introduced a construction and renovation division — Trip Contracting — in 2022. Under this umbrella, George Kosziwka, Chief Strategy Officer of InnVest Hotels, notes, “We do renovations and project management for ourselves, but we have also done a number of renovations for third parties.”
A number of notable acquisitions in the last few years has meant there is no shortage of renovation work to be done. Because, as Jeff Hyslop, the company’s senior vice-president of Asset Management, notes, “All the assets we acquire tend to have opportunity on the renovation side.”
In 2022, InnVest made its first foray into the Canadian resort market with the acquisition of two resorts in Banff, Alta. (the 99-room Royal Canadian Lodge and 65-room Charltons Banff). And a subsequent deal in fall of 2023 marked another milestone for the company as its official entry into the U.S. market.
“[This acquisition] is a significant step for InnVest’s strategy to expand our portfolio outside of Canada,” says Chen. “We are one of the largest hotel companies in this country. However, our ambitions lay not only within Canada. We want to eventually grow to the global market.”
And, while the 189-room Kimpton Hotel Monaco in Seattle, Wa. is just a first step toward these ambitions, the company is happy to take its time and get its bearings before taking a second.
“When we get into new markets, we need to take time to learn,” Chen explains.
The InnVest team followed this up with additional Canadian acquisitions, starting with an iconic east coast resort, the Algonquin Resort St. Andrews by-the-Sea, Autograph Collection and The Algonquin Golf Course, which marked its third resort and first golf-course property.
Then, early this year, the company made a big move — completing its largest acquisition since 2007. This deal saw InnVest purchase 10 of 14 former Morguard Corporation hotels. These new additions, located in Ontario and Halifax, comprised 1,737 guestrooms and 40,000 sq. ft. of meeting and convention space.
And, while the remaining four hotels were acquired by Toronto-based Manga Hotel Group, these were also brought under the management of iHotels.
Finally, to top things off, InnVest acquired the 99-room Banff Inn, located in the centre of Banff, Alta., this June.
As the company has grown and evolved, the strength and dedication of InnVest’s teams has been pivotal to ensuring its success.
And this, Hyslop explains, has been possible thanks to a commitment to fostering a healthy internal culture, which truly starts at the top. “Since we were privatized and Lydia’s been at the helm as CEO and president, she has really connected with the executive team and all our leaders in the field in a way that, I would say, is irregular in the industry,” he shares. “That is what [has driven] the organization forward and outward over the last eight years.”
This dedication is perhaps best captured in InnVest’s core values framework, known as TRIP — teamwork, respect, integrity and performance.
“This is something that Lydia came up with, [along] with our values and our mission statement,” explains Kosziwka. “Those are the four pillars that, as an executive team, we try to live every day. And, we try to show all our people that head office and all of our general managers are walking the walk.”
Kosziwka also points out that this strong internal culture forms a key selling point for iHotels Management. “We have a great platform, [but] we also have the ability to hire one of the best and brightest GMs for you, and having a very successful hotel starts with having a very high-quality general manager,” he says. “There’s just no other platform that does everything that we do with the quality of people that we have.”
“Our goal is to be the one of the best employers in the country,” Chen adds. “We’re continuing to develop and invest in our people and are really trying to hire the best talents to join our company.”
With the growth of InnVest’s team across the country — the Morgaurd acquisition alone adding 766 new team members to the organization — the leadership team has identified an opportunity to create a sense of unity and focus within its charitable efforts.
“Every year, the company — including our hotel teams — commits 5,000 to 6,000 hours of volunteer work as a company,” explains Chen. This includes a number of property-level efforts undertaken by its hotel teams across the country.
To create a more unified approach, the company launched the “InnVest in Community” initiative at its 2024 GM conference in May, where a national charity partner was selected as the main focus of InnVest’s 2024-2025 community-support efforts.
“We wanted it to be a ground-up approach to determining who we were going to support,” Hyslop explains. “We allowed all our hotel leaders to submit proposals on charities that they’re passionate about within their communities.”
This resulted in 38 submissions, which were narrowed down to a top three, focusing on national charities the executive team felt were the best fit. “Then we had presentations on those specific charities at the general managers conference,” Hyslop adds.
This process culminated in a live vote, which saw Food Banks of Canada selected as the InnVest in Community initiative’s inaugural charity partner.
“We have a number of activities planned, starting this fall,” Hyslop explains. “We’re going to do a number of initiatives to support Food Banks of Canada and local food banks in every community.”
As InnVest Hotels sets its sights on the road ahead, Hyslop identifies Victoria and Montreal as key domestic markets the company has an eye on. However, he notes, “Our plan is to focus more on opportunities in the U.S. over the coming years — this would be the next horizon, from a growth perspective.”
However, he also notes that the company sees “an opportunity to leverage its platform to asset manage third-party capital in the space.”
“There’s institutional investors, and other investors that aren’t comfortable directly owning within the hotel space that we can partner with on opportunities,” Hyslop explains.
The company also continues to grow its portfolio of managed properties, with an eye on becoming a leader in the hotel management space. Satinder Dhillon senior vice-president, Operations, notes iHotels is well on its way to reaching its current goal of managing 20 properties for third-party owners.
“We have 12 [third-party] hotels under management at the moment and I have about 20 hotels in the pipeline in various degrees of negotiation,” Dhillon said in September. “As we manage 80-odd hotels, we [have demonstrated that] we have the strength to really bring a lot to the table.
