Business Travel News | BusinessTravelNews.com

French company Accor traded as a stand-alone hotel group for the first time on Friday after the other half of its business, the employee voucher specialist Edenred, was demerged and listed as a public company. The split follows an overwhelming majority decision by shareholders on June 30 to divide the company in two.

The rump Accor hotel business is aiming to improve its cash position by selling off more of its owned properties and switching to being a franchisor of familiar brands, such as Sofitel and Mercure. It aims to be the world’s leading hotel franchisor and one of the top three hotel groups by 2015. During that period, it intends to reduce the proportion of owned or fixed-lease properties in its portfolio from 40 percent to 23 percent. There are currently 4,100 hotels worldwide with an Accor-owned brand name above their front door.

Accor said this week that revenues in the first quarter of 2010 were up 2.8 percent for its upper and midscale brands and 2.7 percent for economy brands with the exception of U.S. budget chain Motel 6, which was down 7.5 percent. Last year, total hotel revenue fell 10.1 percent.