Standard International, the hotel company behind The Standard Hotels and The Peri Hotel — and a majority owner of Bunkhouse House Group — is taking on a lot these days to meet CEO Amber Asher‘s aggressive expansion plans.
25.08.2023 - 13:10 / skift.com / Sean Oneill / Sébastien Bazin / Richard Clarke
Accor reported on Thursday a profit surge in the first half of the year that it mainly credited to pricing its hotel rooms above inflationary operational costs. Demand swelled across regions and property types.
“This momentum should continue for the coming months, driven by robust demand in both leisure and business tourism,” said Sébastien Bazin, chairman and CEO.
But can the Paris-based hotel group sustain high-profit margins after pent-up travel demand has faded? To do that, it will need to focus its portfolio, organizational structure, and investments on the most profitable customer segments, revenue streams, and more than 40 brands — which include Ibis, Novotel, Pullman, Fairmont, and Raffles.
In the first half, Accor generated about $276 million (€248 million) in net profit, a 675% jump year-over-year. Revenue rose 35% to about $1.35 billion (€1.22 billion) after subtracting the revenue it must pass to its managed and franchised properties via services provided.
The company raised its full-year guidance for earnings less than a month after it last boosted it. Accor may be relatively undervalued compared to other hotels, according to Richard Clarke and his fellow analysts at AllianceBernstein in a report earlier this year. U.S. hotel groups are typically more aggressive in how they adjust EBITDA.
If all the companies made the same adjustments in the same way, Accor would see its adjusted EBITDA rise by 22 percentage points. In comparison, Hilton and Marriott would each see 5 percentage points lower margin, Bernstein estimated based on 2022’s figures.
Accor saw strong occupancy and pricing across most types of hotels and regions.
All regions saw growth in revenue per available room, a key industry metric.
Accor is focusing on a few business strategies to keep profit levels high.
Standard International, the hotel company behind The Standard Hotels and The Peri Hotel — and a majority owner of Bunkhouse House Group — is taking on a lot these days to meet CEO Amber Asher‘s aggressive expansion plans.
Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, said on Tuesday that Omer Acar will head its brands Raffles & Orient Express as of March 1. Acar will join Accor’s other brand CEOs in its luxury and lifestyle group (Fairmont, Sofitel & MGallery, and Ennismore) — all of whom report directly to group CEO Sébastian Bazin.
Yanolja said this week it expected that a post-pandemic rebound in international travel will continue to boost its twin businesses of online travel sales via a superapp and software sales to hotels and other travel companies. The South Korea-based startup has made progress on both ambitions since 2011, when it received a $1.7 billion investment from the Softbank Vision Fund in a transaction that valued Yanolja at the time at approximately US$9 billion.
Not all hotels should pursue remote workers, a hotel group CEO has suggested, because they mostly served their purpose during the pandemic.
One of the hottest areas for hotel companies is the open sea. Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, hopes to launch a yacht-style cruise line Orient Express Silenseas by 2026, according to a report in Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
Ace Group International, the operator of a buzzy brand of 11 open Ace lifestyle hotels, will be acquired by Sortis Holdings, a Portland, Oregon-based hospitality firm, the companies said on Tuesday.
On January 17, I reported that Sortis Holdings would acquire Ace Group International, owner of Ace Hotels, for $85 million in cash. Executives for Sortis Holdings, a Portland, Oregon-based hospitality firm, weren’t available to speak when I wrote that article. But I’ve since interviewed them. Here’s some more color on their plans.
Marriott International ended 2022 with a robust performance thanks to the post-pandemic resurgence in travel, the company said on Tuesday. It enjoyed record fourth-quarter average room rates, profit at its managed hotels, hotel development plans, and sign-ups for its co-branded credit cards.
Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, March 2. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.
To better understand the independent luxury hotel scene, I recently sat down with Gordon Drake, who last year became CEO of the Doyle Collection — an Irish family owned group of luxury hotels operating in Dublin, Cork, London, Bristol, and Washington D.C.