Hot weather across Europe saw many of Accor's hotels throughout the continent perform well, but its portfolio in the Middle East saw continued declines from the ongoing conflict in the region.
The French hotel group said room revenue in the United Arab Emirates was “significantly impacted” in the first part of the second quarter but that Dubai had returned to close to full health as that period came to an end. Elsewhere in the Middle East, however, Accor's hotels are still performing well.
“In the Middle East, RevPAR was down 29% driven by the UAE, which was down 67% … with other countries, which is Egypt and Saudi Arabia, namely, posted positive RevPAR growth in the mid-single digits,” Martine Gerow, Accor's group chief finance officer, said during the company's first-half 2026 earnings conference call.
She added that the strength of Accor's global hotel portfolio is making up for the softness in the company's Middle East region.
“Following a very strong start to the year, the situation in the Middle East has impacted our trading in the second quarter, but the performance in other regions has remained very solid,” Gerow said.
Accor's global revenue per available room increased 2.2% year over year, but if its Middle Eastern portfolio was excluded, global RevPAR increased in the same period by 4.6%.
Accor Chairman and CEO Sébastien Bazin said the lack of visibility in hotel bookings in the Middle East is a hindrance. He added that if the U.S.-Iran war finished by the end of September or even in the middle of October, that would be sufficient time given shorter booking lead times to provide Accor with a very robust November and December, months in which the region's tourism market historically does very well.
Gerow said Accor “activated in March a (UAE) profit-protection plan [that] has enabled us to largely offset the impact of the conflict and deliver a very steady set of results,” she added, stating that will consist of a starting figure of €40 million, rising to — depending on the full rate of recovery in the Middle East — €70 million.
Accor executives said the company's full-year outlook would close a little below expected numbers, with overall room count growth down from an expected 4% increase to a little less than 3.5% growth.
In the first half of the year, Accor opened 109 hotels and approximately 14,000 rooms, an increase of 3.2% year over year.
At the end of the first six months of 2026, Accor had a portfolio of 5,835 hotels and 881,928 rooms. Its pipeline is 1,595 hotels and approximately 268,000 rooms. If all those hotels open, the overall hotel count will just be a few properties short of 7,500.
Accor's asset strategy
The results came a few days after Accor announced its full exit from its asset holdings in Essendi, formerly AccorInvest. The move is the final chapter in the decade-plus-long transition from Accor being asset-heavy in hotel ownership to almost completely asset-light.
A joint venture between private equity firms Blackstone and Colony IM acquired the remaining Accor hotels in Essendi for €975 million ($1.1 billion), “including €675 million to be received on closing of the transaction and an earn-out of up to €300 million.”
“The signing of a definitive binding agreement with leading investors for the disposal of our stake in Essendi is an important milestone, completing Accor’s transformation into a resolutely asset-light model that is simple, clear and predictable,” Bazin said.
Accor will soon make a final decision in terms of a potential initial public offering of its joint-venture in Ennismore, Bazin added.
That will be a “game-changer in terms of accelerating the pace of Ennismore growth, visibility, credibility and probably the ability to penetrate great markets such as America,” Bazin added.
Accor's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased 6.5% to €563 million ($642 million).
Discipline around operations costs will help control some of the company's headwinds, Bazin said. He added Accor's outlook anticipates full-year EBITDA to be between €1.26 billion to €1.285 billion, or growth of between 5% to 7%.
Bazin said Accor has the ability to “navigate through the storms” and that the firm has “enormous granularity on its costs, we have an enormous control on operating metrics all over the different geographies … which permits us to navigate, to evaluate, to get into action to build.”
Gerow said the firm is on track to return €3 billion to shareholders, with its latest €225 million tranche announced during the call and, starting in the fourth quarter of the year, a further €500 million from proceeds from the Essendi sale.
As of press time, Accor’s stock was trading on the Euronext Stock Exchange at €46.26 per share, down 3.9% year to date. Euronext was up 5.58% over the same period.