(Reuters) – Accor plans to open more than 1,200 hotels in the next five years, thus increasing the number of its resorts by more than one-fifth, Europe’s biggest hotel group said on Tuesday as part of its capital markets day.
The hotel industry has benefited from higher prices and a rebound in travel demand in the wake of the pandemic, with consumers rushing to travel even as rising interest rates stoke fears of a recession and inflation erodes household purchasing power.
Accor also raised its outlook, forecasting its 2023 revenue per room (RevPAR) to grow by 15% to 20% amid reorganisation plans that were implemented in January.
The firm expects core earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) this year of 920-960 million euros ($1.01-$1.05 billion).
Chief Executive Officer Sébastien Bazin attributes the growth to the “confirmation of a very broad international demand across the different countries, a summer that will be a good one based on current confirmation of booking occupancy, and therefore demand that is only growing in almost all the Group’s segments, in almost all geographies,” he said on a call.
The French-listed group aims to grow its EBITDA by 9-12% annually from 2023 through 2027.
Accor said it plans to return around 3 billion euros to shareholders in that period via dividends and share buybacks.
($1 = 0.9153 euros)
(This story has been corrected to read “around 3 billion”, not “3.3 billion”, in paragraph 7)
(Reporting by Tristan Veyet and Gaëlle Sheehan in Gdansk; editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
