Accor Hotels has reported financial results for the first half of the year, revealing first-half revenue up increased by 5.1 per cent to €2,726 million.

At the same time EBIT was up 23.8 per cent, to €263 million, while bet profits for the period increased 68 per cent to €91 million.

Accor chief executive Sébastien Bazin said: “Once again, AccorHotels has undertaken numerous initiatives to secure its lead and improve its performance.

“Our teams have united around our strategic priorities – restructuring of the property portfolio at HotelInvest, swift rollout of the digital plan, selective hotel development, revamping of the food and beverage offering and cultural transformation.

“The benefits from these initiatives have contributed to our good results in the first half, which include a significant increase in revenue and EBIT, strong cash flow generation, more robust positions in the fastest-growing markets and an improvement in the value of our hotel assets.”

Accor has set a 2015 EBIT target of between €650 million and €680 million.

Over the first half of the year saw strong growth in Europe, outside of France, while there was also sustained growth in emerging markets, with the exception of Brazil, which was down sharply.

“These conditions enable us to set an objective for the full year of significantly improving our performance while at the same time ramping up our digital investment, despite persistently mixed environments in Brazil and France,” added Bazin.

“All of this encourages us to proactively pursue our goal of transforming AccorHotels through our boldness, vision and pioneering spirit, with the same single objective in mind – better serving our customers.”