Backlash over support to Pakistan: Turkey and Azerbaijan start losing Indian footfall

With Turkey and Azerbaijan facing a backlash in India over their support for Pakistan during the military confrontation following the Pahalgam terror attack, travel booking portals are reporting a notable drop in bookings from Indians for these countries — and a jump in cancellations.

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Some Indian travel service providers have also stopped offering flight and hotel bookings for the two countries, while a few others are dissuading Indians from travelling there.Turkey and Azerbaijan are popular destinations for Indians with the number of travellers and direct flight connections growing in recent years. Istanbul is also a major aviation hub used by Indian flyers to connect to destinations beyond Turkey as well. Now, given the growing clamour to boycott these countries, the situation is reminiscent of the calls for boycott of Maldives in January 2024 when a diplomatic row erupted following derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi by three Maldivian deputy ministers.

“Indian travellers have expressed strong sentiments over the past one week, with bookings for Azerbaijan and Turkey decreasing by 60 per cent, while cancellations have surged by 250 per cent 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,” a spokesperson for online travel booking service provider MakeMyTrip said on Wednesday, without elaborating further on the data.Another online travel agency, EaseMyTrip, said it is seeing high cancellation rates of bookings for Azerbaijan and Turkey. EaseMyTrip has already seen 22 per cent of bookings for Turkey cancelled over the past week, and 30 per cent for Azerbaijan.