Conflict in the Middle East negatively affected Accor's earnings in the second quarter, CFO Martine Gerow said on Thursday (30 July) during an earnings call, though she emphasised that business in other regions remained “very solid”.
Accor's second-quarter systemwide RevPAR slipped 0.2 per cent year on year to €78, though Gerow said the figure reflected “two very different situations” across its portfolio.
Excluding the Middle East, RevPAR rose 3 per cent, driven by pricing and occupancy. In the Middle East — which represented 8 per cent of Accor’s room portfolio in December 2025 and 12 per cent of 2025 room revenue — RevPAR fell 29 per cent, led by a 67 per cent decline in the UAE. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, posted positive RevPAR growth “in the mid-single digits”.
Reflecting on the year's first half, Gerow said RevPAR growth increased 2.2 per cent year on year – or 4.6 per cent excluding the Middle East – driven by both business and leisure travel, with business groups growing “in the mid-single digits”. She added that the company ended the second quarter with a “marked improvement” in the UAE and “an acceleration in other regions, notably in Europe”.
Both Gerow and Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin pointed to the company’s “swift and rigorous” profit protection plan, which they said has allowed it to “build buffers” against geopolitical uncertainty.
The plan, which includes a travel and hiring freeze across Accor and has been in place since March, will continue into the second half of the year, Bazin said.
“The profit protect plan… has to remain, [it] has to be the main focus, [it] has to be our compass to move forward because the context is not going to get better in terms of the challenging [operating] environment,” he said,
In its earnings report on Thursday, Accor also addressed accusations, made in March, of exploitation and child trafficking by US-based short seller Grizzly Research. Accor’s internal and external investigations found its protection procedures "do not have any systemic shortcomings”, the company said, while identifying areas for improvement that the French hospitality group is “committed to implementing in 2026”.
Q2 metrics
Second-quarter RevPAR in Europe and North Africa was broadly stable, rising 0.2 per cent year on year to €79.
Q2 RevPAR in Accor's Premium, Midscale & Economy division was also stable, up 0.1 per cent year on year to €63, while it fell 1.4 per cent to €161 in its Luxury & Lifestyle division.
Systemwide average daily rate grew 1.1 per cent year on year in Q2 to €115. ADR in Europe and North Africa was stable, increasing 0.2 per cent to €108. It rose 1 per cent to €93 in the Premium, Midscale & Economy division and increased 2.3 per cent to €251 at Luxury & Lifestyle properties.
Systemwide Q2 occupancy reached 67.3 per cent, down 0.9 percentage points year over year, while Americas occupancy increased 0.8 percentage points to 61.7 per cent.
Total revenue for H1 increased 3 per cent year on year to €2.76 billion on a constant-currency basis. Accor opened 109 hotels, comprising 14,000 rooms, during the first half, representing net unit growth of 3.2 per cent over the last 12 months. As of 30 June, the company's portfolio totalled 5,835 hotels, or nearly 882,000 rooms, with a pipeline of 1,595 hotels, or 268,000 rooms.