Russia, Georgia lose Azerbaijani tourists as overnight stays plunge

In 2025, Azerbaijani citizens recorded a total of 7,111,838 overnight stays abroad for tourism purposes, down 9% compared to 2024, with Russia and Georgia losing the most visitors from Azerbaijan.

Most overnight stays were in hotels and hotel-type accommodations—3,604,190 nights, a slight 0.7% decline year-on-year, Caliber.Az reports via local media.

Rentals saw 925,087 nights, falling 11.3%. Meanwhile, stays with relatives and friends increased to 1,589,640 nights (+12%), while overnight stays in private or family-owned apartments dropped sharply to 992,121 (–42.7%).

Türkiye remained the top destination with 3,129,365 nights (–6.3%). Russia recorded 987,520 nights (–46.3%) and Georgia 770,120 (–46.5%).

In total, 1,280,787 Azerbaijani citizens travelled abroad for tourism, down 6.2% from the previous year. Of these, 277,619 traveled for business (–16.3%), 574,862 for leisure and recreation (–6.1%), 308,012 to visit relatives and friends (+5.1%), 42,613 for medical purposes (+9.6%), 28,717 for religious trips (+27%), 32,424 for shopping (–33.2%), and 16,540 for other reasons (–9.2%).

In the leisure segment, Türkiye led with 267,438 travellers (+12.1%), followed by the UAE with 68,336 (+2.2%). At the same time, trips to Russia fell to 53,613 (–58.5%) and to Georgia to 50,172 (–14.6%).

By Jeyhun Aghazada