Accor on Wednesday reported consolidated first-quarter 2021 revenue totaled €361 million (US$434 million), down 53% as reported and 48% like-for-like versus Q1 2020 (i.e., -57% versus Q1 2019).
RevPAR fell by 64.3% versus Q1 2019, reflecting an environment that remains hard hit by the Covid-19 epidemic. There were, however, significant year-on-year improvements in South Europe, Australia, the Middle East and North America.
During the first quarter, Accor opened 56 hotels, representing 7,100 rooms. Although slightly below previous years. At end-March 2021, the group had a portfolio of 757,000 rooms (5,163 hotels) and a pipeline of 211,000 rooms (1,204 hotels), of which 74% in emerging markets.
As of April 19, 2021, 87% of the Group’s hotels were open, which equates to more than 4,500 units.
“There were no surprises in our first-quarter performance,” said Accor Chairman and CEO Sébastien Bazin. “Global business trends are improving slightly and the ramp-up of the vaccine rollouts bodes well for a particularly strong rebound. As it did in 2020, the Group continues to keep a close eye on protecting its cash and cutting costs. Today, all our efforts are focused on the strong recovery expected this summer.”
Accor reported first-quarter 2021 revenue of €361 million (US$434 million), down 48% like-for-like versus Q1 2020. This decline came to -56% for HotelServices and -33% for Hotel Assets & Other. To provide a comparison with RevPAR (presented as the change versus Q1 2019 throughout this release), the like-for-like decline in revenue versus Q1 2019 is 57%.
HotelServices, which comprises fees from management, franchise and services to owners, reported €234 million (US$281 million) in revenue, down 64% life-for-like versus Q1 2019. This decline reflects the Covid-19-related deterioration in RevPAR.
Revenue in the management and franchise business was €73 million (US$88 million), down 69% like-for-like versus Q1 2019, with performance hit by the gradual spread of the virus in various regions. In general, the sharper decline in these revenues reflects the collapse in incentive fees based on the hotel operating margin generated from management contracts.
RevPAR improved sequentially in South Europe to -63.2%, mainly due to the easing of some of the restrictions. North Europe reported a sharper drop in RevPAR of 81.9% due to the extension of strict lockdown measures since end-2020. In Asia-Pacific, RevPAR fell by 54.8%, with mixed performances by region. In the India, Middle East, Africa & Turkey region, RevPAR was down 50.5%. This improvement in performance was driven by the United Arab Emirates, and more specifically by Dubai, which saw a strong inbound from Europe as most of the border restrictions have been eased. RevPAR was down 72.8% in the Americas.
Accor confirms its EBITDA sensitivity per point of RevPAR a tad below €18 million (US$22 million), down from 2019, and monthly cash burn of less than €40 million (US$48 million). It said these indicators should be viewed in the context of the group’s healthy balance sheet, which has €3.6 billion (US$4.3 billion) in cash, of which €1.8 billion (US$2.1 billion) of undrawn revolving credit facility.