French hotel giant Accor saw half-year operating profits improve on the back of a 5.1% rise in revenues.
The company reported “robust” business in the UK, Germany, Poland and the Benelux countries, as well as strong operational efficiency.
But earnings were down by 7.5% in France and 48.5% in the Americas region mainly due to challenging economic conditions in Brazil compared to last summer when the World Cup was held in the country.
Group operating profits were up to €239 million from €185 million in the first six months of 2014 as revenue grew to €2.72 billion.
Group earnings [EBIT] were up by 23.8% to €263 million from €212 million a year earlier.
Chairman and chief executive, Sebastien Bazin, said: “Once again, AccorHotels has undertaken numerous initiatives to secure its lead and improve its performance.
“Our teams have united around our strategic priorities – restructuring of the property portfolio at HotelInvest, swift rollout of the digital plan, selective hotel development, revamping of the food and beverage offering and cultural transformation.
“The benefits from these initiatives have contributed to our good results in the first half, which include a significant increase in revenue and EBIT, strong cash flow generation, more robust positions in the fastest-growing markets and an improvement in the value of our hotel assets.
“These conditions enable us to set an objective for the full year of significantly improving our performance while at the same time ramping up our digital investment, despite persistently mixed environments in Brazil and France.
“All of this encourages us to proactively pursue our goal of transforming AccorHotels through our boldness, vision and pioneering spirit, with the same single objective in mind – better serving our customers.”