ACCOR SA, Europe's biggest hotel owner, said yesterday first-half profit dropped 48 percent from last year, when results were boosted by asset sales, and forecast slowing profit growth as customers retrench.

Net income fell to 310 million euros (US$459 million) from 596 million euros a year earlier, when disposals added 311 million euros to earnings, Paris-based Accor said.

Second-half profit growth will be about 10 percent, excluding currency swings, slowing from 25 percent in the first half because of a "less favorable economic environment," Chief Financial Officer Jacques Stern said.

Accor will also cut jobs in the Americas. The hotelier sold units, including Go Voyages, to focus on lodging and expanding its service-voucher unit.

"We anticipate more challenging times ahead," ABN Amro analyst Simon Larkin said before the results were published, citing deteriorating economic conditions in Europe. Larkin advises investors to sell the hotelier's stock.

Pretax profit before one-time gains and losses rose to 393 million euros from 379 million euros, near the 395-million-euro median estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

The owner of Sofitel and Pullman brands has sold 1.4 billion euros of "non-strategic" assets since 2006.

Accor will cut jobs in the United States and Latin America as part of a 75-million-euro cost saving plan, which also includes a marketing campaign and new information-technology projects in 2009 and 2010, Stern said.

The company forecast full-year pretax profit, before one-time gains and losses, between 910 million euros and 930 million euros. Profit as a percentage of sales widened by 0.8 percentage points in the first half of 2008, helped by the voucher division, where the margin improved by 1.1 percent.