Turkey and Serbia became the most popular destinations for foreign business trips in 2023

As a study by Aeroclub business travel agency has shown, Turkey and Serbia have become the most popular foreign business destinations for Russian businessmen in 2023.

"Turkey for the first time became the leader in demand among business representatives - the share of air tickets to this country is 12%, and the demand for this destination increased by 125% compared to last year and 25% to 2019," the report says.

According to the company, the popularity of Serbia has also grown significantly: last year this destination was in the sixth place, and earlier it was not even included into the top 20.

“In terms of the number of air tickets purchased since the beginning of the year, Belgrade ranked first among all foreign cities. The share of tickets to Serbia amounted to 11% of the total number of foreign flights, while demand grew by 1 640% compared to last year (+924% by 2019). Kazakhstan, which was the leader in 2021, moved to the third place, despite an increase in demand by a third compared to last year (-13% compared to 2019)," the report says.

Other most popular business travel destinations include Armenia, UAE, Uzbekistan, China, Belarus, Italy, and India. Demand for flights to all these countries increased compared to 2022, with the exception of Italy, where the decline is 42%.

Most often, employees of IT and telecom companies went on foreign business trips in 2023. In the second place are representatives of the mining, energy and manufacturing industries. Pharmaceutical companies are the third.

Aeroflot became again the leader by the number of business travelers which were carried on international routes. 27% of business tourists chose the national carrier. Turkish Airlines were chosen by 18%, Air Serbia - 9%.