Accor has seen revenue for financial 2018 increase by 16.9 per cent to €3.6 billion.

EBITDA at the French hotel giant was up 14.5 per cent to €712 million, or eight per cent on a like-for-like basis.

Sébastien Bazin, chairman of Accor, said: “Accor 2018 results reflect a profound transformation, marked foremost by the sale of our real estate division and a large number of acquisitions.

“Our results are clearly improving, with EBITDA, free cash flow generation and organic development all once again at record highs.

“They are also perfectly in line with our medium-term objectives.”

Over the past year Accor has acquired stakes in Orbis, sbe Entertainment and Mantis Collection, while also purchasing Mövenpick, Adoria and Manta.

The company also launched a share buyback scheme to return some of the profits from the sale of property arm AccorInvest to investors.

Bazin added: “Accor’ growth continues: we are increasing our global market share and consolidating our balance sheet.”

Accor reported recurring free cash flow of €529 million for financial 2018, while net profit at the group stood at €2,233 million

The company opened 588 hotels and 100,000 rooms last year, leaving a total of 703,806 rooms in 4,780 hotels at the end of the year.

The group ended 2018 with a hotel pipeline of 198,000 rooms in 1,118 hotels, 78 per cent of which are in emerging markets.