Accor reports record year with revenue growth of 16%

Accor has reported a record year in 2019, following revenue increases of 16%.

Revenue reached €4b (£3.4b) with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation growing by 14.8% to €825m (£690m).

Net profits for the group, which added 327 hotels comprising more than 45,000 rooms during the year, stood at €464m (£388m).

In the UK the group reported that revenue per available room (revpar) remained largely stable, after recording a 2% uptick in London but a fall of 1.7% in the regions, which was attributed to soft corporate demand.

Sébastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive of Accor, said: "The group delivered a record performance again for FY2019. This is all the more outstanding against a difficult macroeconomic background and in light of our successful transformation, parallel to achieving growth.

"Today, Accor is more diversified than ever, and a fully asset-light group. Going forward, we will pursue the execution of our strategy, focusing on our roadmap and value creation for shareholders.

"While these are challenging times for China, our thoughts are with the Chinese people, our teams, our clients and our partners there. As we are actively managing the situation in the region, our focus is on the fundamentals, which are the cornerstone of our business model: the excellence of our 300,000-strong workforce, our powerful brands, our top-performing distribution tools and loyalty programs, our consolidated leadership position in high potential regions, and our highly robust financial position. By leveraging these assets, we are confident in our ability to pursue our growth objectives and enhance sustainable shareholder returns."

Accor had a portfolio of 739,537 rooms across 5,036 hotels and a pipeline of 208,000 rooms in 1,206 hotels, as of December 31, 2019.

Accor has launched a share buyback programme, setting aims of €600m (£501m) in 2020 and €400m (£334m) in 2021.