AccorHotels announced net profit for 2016 of EUR€266 million, an 8 percent increase from the previous year.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were up 4.5 percent at €696 million as it benefited from an ongoing cost cutting initiative.

Consolidated revenue rose 0.9 percent to €5.63 billion on “healthy” business levels in most of the group’s key markets. In regional terms, Asia-Pacific revenue was up 5.5 percent, the Americas rose 4.7 percent, and northern, central and eastern Europe saw a 4.1 percent revenue gain.

Asia-Pacific growth was led by the addition of 252 hotels over the last three years, operated under franchise or management contracts.

In the group’s home market of France, revenue per available room (RevPAR) was up 4.2 percent, but in Paris business was “very challenging”, with a RevPAR drop of 13.2 percent.

During the year, AccorHotels added 81,042 rooms in 347 hotels to its portfolio, 89 percent of them under management contracts or franchise agreements. At year end, the group portfolio comprised 4,144 hotels and 583,161 rooms.

“AccorHotels has posted an excellent performance for 2016 in a challenging environment, in particular with record levels of EBIT and numbers of hotel rooms opened,” AccorHotels chief executive Sébastien Bazin said.

AccorHotels in July announced plans to move its HotelInvest property business into a separate company. The group plans to sell a majority share of the business, valued at €6.6 billion, to third-party investors.

“Carrying out our project to turn HotelInvest into a subsidiary in 2017 will give us significant headroom to seize the numerous opportunities provided by the rapid transformation of our industry,” Bazin said in a statement.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been appointed to chair the company's new international strategy committee.