Middle East shines for Rezidor Hotel Group in Q3

Rahul Odedra, October 26th, 2014

Rezidor Hotel Group has hailed its performance in the Middle East and Africa during the third quarter, when it was buoyed by strong growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) and earnings.

Across the ‘Middle East, Africa and Others’ region, the operator’s RevPAR was up 9.5% year-on-year to €62.80, due to strong like-for-like growth in occupancy (up 9.5%) and stable room rates (up 0.1%).

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up 8.1% to €4 million, with the EBITDA margin up 4.1 percentage points to 69%.

The company said its RevPAR growth across the region was boosted particularly by its performance in Saudi Arabia (up 9.3%) and South Africa (13%).

Globally, RevPAR was up 3.5% on a like-for-like basis, while EBITDA rose from €22.8 million to €26.4 million.

"Steady progress continues to be made on key strategic initiatives. Rezidor continues to grow on an asset light basis, signing over 1,300 rooms in the quarter. The pipeline of projects has over 19,000 rooms over a broad geographic area,” said The Rezidor Hotel Group president & CEO Wolfgang Neumann.

"Both profits and margin performance showed improved results. Despite the current challenges in some of the Emerging Markets, the company generated higher profits from these markets in Q3 this year than during the same period last year.

"The improvement is a result of growth of the portfolio and our asset light business model. Furthermore, the EBITDA margin in the quarter reached 11% for the first time in a third quarter since 2007."