The hotel giant, whose brands include Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis, also saw revenue rise by 0.9% year-on-year to €5.6 billion in 2016.
Despite the company-wide gains, Accor’s French market revenue fell by 2.8% with revenue per available room in Paris dropping by 13.2% due to lower demand on the back of terror attacks in the French capital in November 2015.
In a trading statement, Accor described business in Paris as being “very challenging” with demand “affected by recent events”.
Earnings [EBIT] from its France business fell by 13% following the terror incidents in Paris and also Nice.
Elsewhere, Accor’s trading in the Americas was dulled by Brazil, which, Accor said, was “still plagued by major economic difficulties despite the beneficial impact of the Olympic Games.”
The Group’s Eastern Europe, UK and German markets were its main drivers in northern, central and eastern Europe with revenue growth of 7.6%, 4.3% and 3.7% for the year.
Sebastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive said: “Accor Hotels has posted an excellent performance for 2016 in a challenging environment, in particular with record levels of EBIT and numbers of hotel rooms opened.
“Thanks to the efforts made by our teams around the world, we have implemented strong operational levers, which enabled growth in earnings to outpace that in revenue.
“We have ventured out to conquer new markets and offer new services thereby consolidating our leadership position and opening up new horizons for our clients.
“Carrying out our project to turn HotelInvest into a subsidiary in 2017 will give us significant headroom to seize the numerous opportunities provided by the rapid transformation of our industry.”
