The French group announced the full-year 2019 results, with a strong development in emerging markets and in the luxury market, representing a quarter of the latest additions. The European supply had a good increase in revenue, especially in France thanks to several major events.

Accor had a strong portfolio development in 2019: +45,108 additional rooms (+327 hotels) on an organic basis, including 12,954 rooms (65 hotels) in the Luxury segment. And even more is to come, with a pipeline of 208,000 rooms (1,206 hotels) at December 31, 2019, of which 76% are in emerging markets.

As for the financial results, the consolidated full-year 2019 revenue totalled €4,049 million, up +3.8% like-for-like (LFL) and up +16.0% as reported compared with full-year 2018. Also, the consolidation, including acquisitions and disposals, generated a positive impact of €380 million (+10.9%). It is said that this is mostly due to the Mantra and Mövenpick brands. The EBITDA was up +14.8% to €825 million (+5.9% LFL) on its side. At last but not least, the group registered a €464-million net profit.

A consolidated RevPAR growth of +1.7% was also recorded in 2019. The currency effect contributed to €48 million (+1.4%) of the revenue, mostly due to a strong US dollar (€50 million). The group reports the revenue divided into HotelServices activities (€2,894 million, up +4.6% LFL), Hotel Assets & Other (€1,077 million, up +2.9% LFL), and New Businesses including concierge services, luxury home rentals, private sales for luxury hotel stays, and digital services for hotels (€159 million, up +3.8% LFL).

The Management & Franchise (M&F) revenue was €1,026 million, up 3.8% on a like-for-like basis. This is mainly due to a global growth in all markets. Europe recorded a good M&F revenue increase of +4.0% LFL, and a RevPAR increase of +2.6% (all segments combined). French RevPAR was up +2.6%, thanks to several events that occurred in 2019, like the Paris Air Show and the FIFA Women’s World Cup, even if the strikes pulled down the results of the French capital at the end of the year (while regional cities were less impacted and therefore more “resilient” with a RevPAR increase of +3.3%).

Sébastien Bazin, Chairman and CEO of Accor, commented:

 The Group delivered a record performance again for FY 2019. 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. 

As explained in the 2020 ranking focus on Accor group, 2019 was deeply marked by the asset-light model transformation of the group. Indeed, the first financial transaction of the year was the conclusion on January 23 of the tender offer announced in December for the capital of Orbis to raise Accor's stake to 85.8%. This action laid the foundations for the year, which was strongly marked by the Group's asset-light strategy, such as the sale of 5.2% of AccorInvest's capital to several of the company's shareholders for 204 million euros, the sale of 5% of the capital of the Chinese group Huazhu for 451 million dollars, and the acquisition of the hotel services business from Orbis' real estate assets for 286 million euros.