TUI Group has delivered growth in turnover at the start of financial 2017, while the seasonal quarter one loss at the travel giant was also reduced year-on-year.

On a constant currency basis, underlying EBITA rose by 17 per cent to a loss of €66.7 million in the period from October to December.

This is an improvement from the loss of € 80.4 million for the same period last year.

The result reflects higher than usual sickness rates in TUI fly Germany in early October 2016.

TUI Group’s turnover climbed by 8.5 per cent to €3.49 billion, up from the previous year figure of €3.21 billion.

Including the impact of foreign exchange translation, it rose by 2.3 per cent to €3.29 billion.

Fritz Joussen, chief executive, TUI Group, emphasised the group’s strength despite a challenging market environment in some destinations.

He said: “A broad portfolio of group-owned hotel and cruise companies, aircraft and tour operators are gathered under the Group umbrella.

“Moreover, we operate in more than 100 countries around the globe.

“This gives us great flexibility and enables us to quickly remix our programme if our customers’ travel preferences change.

“The transformation of our business as an integrated tourism business based on own hotel and cruise brands, initiated in 2014, is really paying off.

“This has been demonstrated by the very good performance delivered in the completed financial year and has been confirmed in quarter one of 2016/17.”