Bleisure travel is a growing trend among corporate travelers, with 60% adding a leisure component to their trips! This popularity is due to a number of factors, including millennial employees’ shifting priorities, remote work, and the rebound of business travel.
What is Bleisure Travel?
Blesiure, the combination of business and leisure travel, takes hybrid and remote work to the next level by incorporating leisure activities into business trips. Travelers benefit from having the business portion of their travel costs covered by their employers and might stay longer at their business destination to add a vacation component. Blesiure travelers might invite their friends and family to join them and complete their workday before enjoying a destination together.
Bleisure isn’t new but it’s accelerating during the recent and ongoing era of remote work. Workers are finding that employers are more amenable to them working remotely and can depend on them to be available when traveling. On days without in-person business obligations, workers may choose to work remotely full or part time, effectively making parts of the trip destination remote work.
Tips for Bleisure Travel
Plan your business obligations for mid- to late-week and use the weekend for leisure. This way, you won’t need to use any of your personal paid time off to enjoy the trip. If it works out, consider planning a bleisure trip around a long weekend. Or extend the trip to include work days and work remotely in a relaxing and inspiring destination.
- Choose which business trips you want to add leisure to carefully. Potential candidates include destinations with very long travel times, such as Asia and Australia, or locations you’ve never visited before.
- Let your boss and coworkers know your plans before you leave on bleisure travel. This way, everyone knows you’re putting business first and taking in your destination on personal time. If you’re extending your vacation beyond the scheduled business trip but still working remotely, you’ll want to be clear with your employer about your availability. Avoid distractions by creating a daily work schedule and sticking to it. Even if you’re a freelancer or have received permission from your company to work a flex schedule while on your blesuire getaway, maintain a sense of structure.
- Explore your business destination after your last morning meeting or following dinner one night. Then, head to a nearby city for the leisure portion of your trip. This is very easy to do in many parts of Europe and the US. If you’re beset by winter doldrums, use your business trip to enjoy a tropical or desert destination. Or maybe you’ll escape the snowy inner city to secluded mountain resorts for scenic views and cozy accommodations.
- Pack smart for your bleisure trip. You’re combining two trips into one, but you don’t get twice the luggage.
- Plan which attractions, restaurants, neighborhoods, and parks you want to see before you leave home. You won’t have time to create an itinerary once you have your work day to contend with, and you don’t want to have to put one together last-minute when you should be vacationing!
- Keep business and leisure separate while traveling, especially regarding business vs. personal expenditures. Misusing a generous travel policy can easily cause a company to change it.
- Your employer may select accommodations for the business portion of the trip, but it’s up to you where you stay during leisure and remote work portions. Choose hotels or resorts with functional and aesthetically-pleasing spaces on property grounds or nearby.
