Recovery on track for Orient Express and Savoy-owner Accor

Business is booming at the company behind the Orient Express and The Savoy Hotel as it bounces back from the Covid pandemic.

Accor – Europe’s largest hotel operator as well as owner of the luxury train service – said profit jumped from £19million in 2021 to £594million last year. 

The firm, which has the Fairmont, Ibis and Pullman chains in the UK in its hotel empire, put the boost down to revived demand for short getaways, particularly in December.

Accor said its hotels performed better than before the pandemic in ‘almost all’ regions. 

In its North Europe division, revenue per room was 5 per cent higher in the fourth quarter of 2022 than in 2019. But revenue came in at 6 per cent below 2019 for the full year.

Revenue per room ‘remained solid’ in the UK despite train strikes severing transport links into London over the year, a spokesman said.

High demand during the Fifa World Cup in Qatar drove bookings in its division covering India, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey. 

But China was weighed down by a strict zero-Covid policy until the end of last year.