Azerbaijan and Turkey backed Pakistan in Operation Sindoor, see dip in Indian tourists

Azerbaijan and Turkey were fast gaining popularity as tourism destinations for Indians and the number of Indian travellers visiting the two countries had grown considerably in recent years, with direct flight connections also seeing a rise. Istanbul is also a major aviation hub and is used by flyers to connect to destinations beyond Turkey, which had remained steady over the past few years despite geopolitical tensions in West Asia.

But Turkey and Azerbaijan’s evident backing for Islamabad during the military conflagration in May led to a backlash in India, with growing clamour to boycott these countries.

In May itself, travel booking portals began reporting a notable drop in bookings for these countries, and a jump in cancellation of bookings already in place. Moreover, some Indian travel service providers, like Ixigo and Cox & Kings, also stopped offering flight and hotel bookings for Turkey and Azerbaijan, while a few other dissuaded Indians from travelling to these countries.

For instance, online travel booking service providers MakeMyTrip and EaseMyTrip advised against non-essential travel to Turkey and Azerbaijan after Operation Sindoor.

“Indian travellers have expressed strong sentiments over the past one week, with bookings for Azerbaijan and Turkey decreasing by 60%, while cancellations have surged by 250% during the same period. In solidarity with our nation and out of deep respect for our armed forces, we strongly support this sentiment and advise all against all non-essential travel to Azerbaijan and Turkey. We have already discontinued all promotions and offers on our platform to discourage tourism to these two destinations,” MakeMyTrip had said in a statement on May 14.

According to the latest available data from the Azerbaijan Tourism Board, while the number of visitors from India had grown 33 per cent year-on-year in January-April, it plummeted almost 56 per cent year-on-year in the following four months.

In the May-August period, the number of visitors to Azerbaijan from India dropped to around 44,000 from nearly a lakh in the corresponding four months of 2024. Before Operation Sindoor, in the first four months of this year, Azerbaijan had around 81,000 visitors from India, notably higher than nearly 61,000 in the year-ago period. Consequently, the visitor numbers from India to Azerbaijan for the first eight months of 2025 were down 22 per cent year-on-year at 1.25 lakh.

The Azerbaijan Tourism Board had described India as a “key target market for the tourism sector in Azerbaijan”, and India was counted among its top five tourism source markets. In August, however, India was at eleventh place in terms of the number of visitors to Azerbaijan. Just 6,032 people from India travelled to Azerbaijan in August, almost 72 per cent lower than 21,137 visitors in August of last year. Earlier, the number of Indians visiting the country more than doubled to 2.44 lakh in 2024 from 1.17 lakh in 2023. In 2022, Azerbaijan had 60,731 Indian visitors. The number was a paltry 4,853 in 2014.

Data from Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism show that the number of Indians travelling to Turkey in the May-August period fell by a third to around 90,400 from nearly 1.36 lakh in the corresponding four months of last year. In the first four months of 2025, around 83,300 Indians visited Turkey, only slightly lower than the year-ago period’s 84,500 visitors. For the entire January-August period, the number of Indian nationals who travelled to Turkey fell 21 per cent year-on-year to 1.74 lakh. By contrast, in January-August of last year, the number of Indian visitors to Turkey had jumped 28.5 per cent from January-August 2023 levels.

In the full year 2024, 3.31 lakh Indian nationals travelled to Turkey, higher by almost 21 per cent over 2023 when 2.74 lakh Indians visited Turkey. In 2022, the number of Indian nationals who visited Turkey stood at 2.32 lakh.

Data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that 5.05 lakh passengers flew on direct flights from India to Turkey in 2024, up almost 15 per cent over 2023. These would have included a sizable number of passengers headed to destinations beyond Turkey using the Istanbul airport as a transit hub.

The number of passengers who flew direct from India to Azerbaijan shot up to 80,567 in 2024 from 28,899 in 2023 as additional flights connecting India and Azerbaijan began operations, leading to an explosion in passenger traffic between the two countries. The passenger traffic data would have included flyers of other nationalities, not just Indians, but the number of foreigners was estimated to be insignificant.