AccorHotels reports mixed first quarter in UK as group opens 46 hotels globally
AccorHotels UK regional properties outperformed its London counterparts in the first quarter of the year, according to the French company's latest financials.
While revenue per available room (revpar) increased by 5% outside of London, in the capital it dropped by 3%, from January to March 2016.
Meanwhile, like-for-like revenue for HotelInvest, the owner and investor division of the group, and HotelServices (the operating arm) climbed 3.2% and 18.5% respectively, driven by a 71.1% increase in occupancy.
HotelServices in particular, benefitted from the rapid development during 2015 of its UK hotel portfolio, which today numbers 222, across the group's Sofitel, MGallery, Novotel, Mercure, Adagio and Ibis brands.
Worldwide, like-for-like revenue across the two divisions was up 1.9% to £918m, but down 5.2% in total to £968m. Business remained challenging in France following the terrorist attacks of November 2015, with total revenue down by 1.6%, with a flat occupancy rate.
The start of the Euro 2016 football tournament in June in France is expected to boost the country's hotel performance during the second quarter of the year.
AccorHotels' properties in Brazil are also having a tough time, with like-for-like performance down 3.7%.
Sébastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive of AccorHotels, said: "Overall, we got off to a good start in a majority of our regions in 2016. Only France and Brazil remain complicated, but the operational teams have been working for the past few months to implement the measures necessary to overcome these difficulties and are steadfastly focused on achieving growth and profits.
"The recent acquisition of onefinestay, the accelerated recruitment of independent hoteliers for our AccorHotels platform and the announced acquisition of FRHI (Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel) demonstrate our agility and our determination. These strengths give us the means to consolidate our position as the world's leading hotel operator and to once again achieve record performances in 2016."
AccorHotels opened 8,961 rooms across 46 hotels during the first quarter of 2016, taking its total global portfolio up to 3,900 hotels in 92 countries.
AccorHotels buys home share company onefinestay >>AccorHotels buys into two home-share businesses >>AccorHotels snaps up Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel >>