Accor Group has raised annual profit guidance by at least €60 million following a strong summer.
Third quarter revenue rose 83% year-on-year to more than €1.1 billion, enabling the French hotel giant to revise its 2022 profit forecast from €550 million to between €610 million and €640 million.
Revenue per available room [revpar] exceeded the equivalent pre-pandemic 2019 level for the second consecutive quarter, including in the UK. Only the Asia-Pacific region saw a decline, with revpar down 9% over summer 2019.
Accor said that Asia is now the only region performing below its pre-crisis level.
“Demand from domestic and international leisure travellers was very strong over the summer, leading to a significant increase in prices, and September benefited from renewed demand from business travellers for major trade shows and fairs,” the company added.
The group cited a positive impact of marketing and sales investments made in first half the year, strict cost discipline and a strong pace of activity.
The company also announced last month that it was selling its Paris headquarters for €465 million and leasing the building back for 12 years.
A total of 93 hotels representing 15,300 rooms opened in the third quarter of the year to give a total of 5,357 properties at the end of September and a pipeline of 1,218 more hotels.
Chairman and chief executive Sabastien Bazin said: “Business momentum remained very strong in the quarter, with the group’s revpar and revenue well above their 2019 levels.
“Excluding Asia-Pacific, where activity is now recovering, all regions saw growth compared with 2019.
“These strong performances, coupled with strict operational and financial discipline, give us confidence in our ability to reach the upper end of our full-year ebitda [earnings] guidance range, which should be between €610 million and €640 million.”
Meanwhile, the PPHE Hotel Group reported a 71% year-on-year rise in total third quarter revenue to £129.6 million – up 7.1% on equivalent 2019 levels.
The strong demand and forward booking momentum has continued into the current quarter, the company said.
PPHE said: “The leisure segment remains robust across all regions, and the group is seeing increasing numbers of bookings from corporate travel and the meetings and events segment.
President and chief executive Boris Ivesha said: “We are extremely pleased with our continued strong trading performance despite well-documented macroeconomic challenges, perfectly reflecting our successful rates-led growth strategy.
“Our Q3 performance is now at levels above those pre-pandemic. Occupancy continues to rebuild as travel returns, but our steadfast focus on rates means we are not wholly reliant on high occupancy to generate attractive returns
“We have also continued to progress our development pipeline and remain excited about the prospects for our upcoming new hotel openings.
“While macroeconomic pressures continue to impact our industry, we remain confident about the Group’s ability to grow revenues and ebitda through its rate-led strategy.”