The Rise of “Bleisure” in Business Travel
It’s interesting to see that now, as the business travel recovery has approached pre-Covid levels, those increases are being boosted by two sectors that previously received only modest attention. The first is internal meetings, which makes sense since many companies continue to accommodate remote “virtual” employees who work from home. Although the productivity claims are debatable, remote employees often feel alienated from the customary mainstream office setting so businesses are compensating by hosting regularly scheduled internal meetings at their respective headquarters or off-site.
The other area that is growing at a noticeable rate is bleisure or, in more respected circles, blended travel. Companies have become much more accommodating in permitting employees to integrate some form of leisure travel as part of a business trip and this represents an opportunity for those of us in the travel business to increase sales with some of our most reliable customers – the business traveler.
Travelperk, a company with a business travel platform, has done some interesting research in the area of bleisure travel:
- Annually, corporate travelers spend 22 days on average traveling for work. The average business trip lasts 3.8 days (SavvySleeper).
- Pre-pandemic, 57% of businesses had travel policies allowing employees to add leisure time to their business trips (Forbes).
- In 2021, 37% of corporate travelers from North America extended their business trips to do some sightseeing and other leisure activities (GBTA).
- U.S. business travelers take over 405 million long-haul business trips annually. It is estimated that employees are adding vacation time to around 60% of these trips (243 million) (Stratos).
- A survey by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) asked travel managers if they thought employees were more interested in blended travel post-pandemic. Eighty-two percent of respondents answered that their teams were now equally or more interested in adding leisure time to their business trips (GBTA).
- In the UK, 45% of survey participants said they intended to add a leisure element to business trips in the future (Crowne Plaza).
- In 2022 a U.S. survey found that 89% of participants wanted to include some vacation time to their next corporate trip (American Hotel & Lodging Association).
- Forty-one percent of travel managers have noted a rise in colleagues asking to add a longer stay to their work trips for leisure purposes (GBTA).
- Eighty-one percent of business travelers are engaging in some variation of bleisure travel. Sixty-one percent of travelers include leisure activities in their itinerary, while 41% are lengthening their stay to carve out some time off around their work trip (National Car).
- The percentage of business trips that become a bleisure trip varies from country to country, 56% in the UK, 65% in Germany, and 62% in China (Stratos).
- In 2022 American Airlines revealed that almost half of its $46 billionrevenue was generated from bleisure itineraries, a record high for the organization (AFA).
- Compared to a 2019 survey workers feel less pressured to hide the leisure elements of their trips from their boss (19% versus 21%) and their colleagues (22% versus 24%) (National Car).
- Seventy-nine percent of bleisure travelers state they volunteer more frequently for business trips where they can extend and enjoy some vacation time (National Car).
Bleisure was growing even before the pandemic, but it has really taken off. It is poised to take over traditional business travel in 2024 and beyond. Recent surveys indicate that 89% of employees plan to add personal vacation time to their business travel—many of whom will bring family and friends along.
This is all great news for travel agents. Most of us have some blend of business travel, along with our normal vacation and cruise travel. This is potentially new add-on business that is easily identifiable since we all know when and where our corporate customers are traveling.
There are none of the usual costs associated with marketing and mailers or ad placements. All we need to do when we take a business travel reservation, and see an opportunity for a leisure add-on, is to simply ask.
Mark Altman
Forte Business Travel Solutions
516-624-0500 x5072
maltman@travelsavers.com
