The Russian Black Sea resort town of Anapa defeated neighboring Sochi in the competition for domestic tourists during the 2026 summer season, leaving many Sochi hoteliers who set high early booking rates with less than 60 percent occupancy.
Aleksan Mkrtchyan, vice president of the Alliance of Travel Agencies of Russia, an industry trade group, told the National News Service that Sochi suffered a 12 percent decline in visitor numbers after local hoteliers priced initial bookings too high.
Mkrtchyan explained that hotel operators in Sochi failed to anticipate Anapa opening all of its municipal beaches for the summer. He noted that while expensive early rates doomed bookings across Sochi, smarter establishments that offered lower rates matching Anapa in the spring achieved 80 percent occupancy by August.
By contrast, Anapa recorded steady growth throughout the summer season. Visitor numbers in the resort town rose by 45 percent up to mid-July and posted a 30 percent increase in August. Anapa and Sochi are both major coastal holiday destinations located in the Krasnodar Krai region of southern Russia, with Sochi having previously hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Black Sea Infrastructure Problems
Other destinations along the Black Sea coast experienced even steeper declines in tourist numbers during the summer. Crimea suffered the largest drop of any destination on the Black Sea coast, falling by 70 percent as the peninsula struggled with persistent problems surrounding fuel, electricity, and water supplies.
The resort town of Gelendzhik also lost visitors due to fuel shortages, while the nearby Tuapse district lost tourists following an oil spill. Meanwhile, the republic of Dagestan, located on the Caspian Sea in the North Caucasus, failed to recover visitor numbers after suffering severe flooding.
Mkrtchyan stated that widespread utility disruptions and inflated domestic prices led an increasing number of Russian travelers to choose overseas vacations instead. Ilya Yurtaev, general director of the tour aggregator Tourvisor, previously identified Turkey as the safest international destination for Russian vacationers.
