Understanding Bleisure Travel – A Complete Guide
Bleisure travel – blending business travel with leisure – has boomed and, together with workations and remote work, it allows professionals to extend their corporate trips into more immersive and intentional experiences. In this editorial, One Planet Journey co-founder Richard Lindberg explores how bleisure leads to deeper travel; encouraging cultural connections and personal growth. Enjoy a guide to benefits, challenges, and tips to optimise bleisure travel.
The Rise of Remote Work and Workations
Bleisure – A Gateway to Deep Travel Experiences
Bleisure: Benefits for Employers and Employees
Challenges with Bleisure Travel
How Businesses Can Attract Bleisure Travellers
What is Bleisure
Bleisure typically involves staying a few extra days (before or after company commitments) to relax, experience local culture, or go sightseeing. The term reflects a growing trend where travellers blend work and travel, promoting more meaningful journeys. The concept supports both productivity and personal well-being, allowing professionals to maximise their time and immerse themselves in different environments. In other words, deep travel.
Still unsure what bleisure can look like? Here are a couple of examples:
A consultant in the accommodations sector travels to a meeting in Montpellier, and then adds two extra days to visit wineries in the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
A HR manager travels to Dubai bound for a conference and arrives the weekend before to get deeper into the local culture, taking a trip to the oasis city of Al Ain.
Bleisure Market Size
Bleisure travel is not a niche movement, rather it accounts for 30-35% of global corporate travel, estimated at around $700 billion US Dollars today (Future Marketing Insights Report, 2024). While already growing before the pandemic, it took off in a spectacular manner afterwards, even poised to overtake standard business travel (Fortune, 2022).
As many travellers add personal vacation days, either before or after their work, especially the millennial generation, companies have responded, with 57% having a policy for that age group to prolong corporate trips (AMEX Global Business Travel, 2023).
The Rise of Remote Work and Workations
Bleisure is often the first step towards a more intentional blend of work and vacation. This is the workation where practitioners sit in a dedicated space with others of a similar mindset. For those who get the taste of working outside the office, the logical continuation is to set up some form of remote work situation on a more permanent basis.
Remote work has fundamentally reshaped how and why people travel, and despite efforts by corporations to draw them back to the office, the genie is out of the lamp and refuses to return. Before the pandemic, business travel tended to be a quick in-and-out affair, with little opportunity to explore a destination, however tempting. Now, with workations, professionals can spend extended time in one place, combining productivity with personal development.
Using co-working spaces allows you to meet other like-minded souls, as well as locals. There are, for example, dedicated seaside villas with proper work environments, near major sights and attractions to elevate the experience. Choose your preferred setting and join a community.
Remote work implies freedom, allowing more professionals to engage in deep travel, which emphasises quality over quantity. The ability to work anywhere has transformed the business traveller into a cultural explorer, encouraging longer stays to get under the skin of the destination. Some even take the next step and become digital nomads, setting up their own business to ensure total location independence. Why not enjoy world cities like London, where endless possibilities await?
Bleisure: A Gateway to Deep Travel ExperiencesÂ
Bleisure opens the door to more immersive travel in several ways, leaving you with lasting memories, new friendships, and more sides of yourself to explore. The key tenants of an elevated trip are personal and unique, but often involve a combination of factors.
Extended StaysÂ
Instead of hopping between cities without actually experiencing them, bleisure allows travellers to stay longer, giving them the time to experience the pulse of local life while engaging in remote work. Long-term stays mean you can visit lesser-known areas, sample local food, and decide what you want to see. Not what you’re supposed to do according to popular opinion on social media.
Authentic Social Interactions
With more days in one place, bleisure travellers have an opportunity to build connections with locals beyond transactional encounters. There is time to attend workshops, cultural events, or learn some local lingo, all designed to bring you closer to the community. Deeper conversations help to truly understand a region’s culture, history, and values, often missed on short business trips. A good tip is to synchronise your trip with festivals, fairs, or exhibitions.
Intentional Exploration
With a clear plan in terms of itinerary and purpose of the visit, travellers can maximise both productivity and exploration. However, a true deep travel approach also leaves room for spontaneity. You know those unexpected, unplanned moments which you remember more than anything else. Mixing structured activities with free time to wander local markets, get lost in alleyways, or explore natural settings allows to fully connect with the destination beyond bucket-list tourism.
Sustainability and BleisureÂ
Bleisure combines business and leisure into an extended stay, thereby reducing the environmental impact of multiple flights. On the social side, staying longer supports local businesses, farmers, and artisans.
Employers often have corporate travel partners that can help in finding accommodation, activities, and dining with sustainability in mind. Other important considerations include using public transport, or walking, avoiding single-use plastic, and being aware of water and energy consumption, the two latter sometimes in shortage at many popular destinations.
Bleisure: Benefits for Employers and EmployeesÂ
Bleisure isn’t a one-sided affair or a way to escape work. Instead, it has a mutually positive impact on both employers and employees:
Increased Employee Satisfaction
Employees who integrate travel with work express more fulfilment, leading to higher job satisfaction and retention. Employees should consider the flexibility as a perk, as it enhances work-life balance. Trust and clear guidelines are crucial components to a successful bleisure experience, including who pay’s for what, when/how to communicate, and establishing regular check-ins with the office.
Boosted Creativity and Productivity
Employees exposed to new cultures, ideas, and environments often come back with fresh perspectives. Remote work in inspiring locations has the potential to get the creative juices flowing, leading to more productive work flow. Naturally, this requires a disciplined mind, and once again, an intentional plan with a clear purpose.
Reduced Burnout
Adding the component of personal development, a key aspect of deep travel, can help employees manage stress better. Sometimes all we need is a change of environment, combined with some leisure activities. The blend of work and rest results in a more relaxed and happy workforce.
Challenges with Bleisure TravelÂ
While bleisure has many perks, it’s comes with a set of challenges that each traveller has to navigate based on their particular circumstances.
Work-Life Balance
Let’s admit it. The flexibility of remote work can sometimes blur the line between what we consider leisure and general work, making it difficult to disconnect. Without clear and intentional boundaries, travellers might end up struggling to enjoy their surroundings as they juggle deadlines and meetings with social activities. This is even more important to keep in mind if you bring family on the non-work part of the trip.
Time Zones
Aside from jetlag, different time zones may create challenges for staying in contact with your team. You might find yourself working odd hours or unable to engage in local activities because of job-related obligations.
Increased Costs
Who doesn’t want to linger a bit longer? But we don’t like the bill that comes with it, for example, higher accommodation and living costs. It is crucial to budget up front, especially if you go to high-demand travel spots in the peak season.
Packing
Formal business meeting require one set of clothes, leisure activities, another, perhaps a few depending on if you head out in nature for hikes or other adventures. Plan ahead, and pack versatile clothes.
Security & Legal
Don’t forget to check visa requirements, insurance policies, and how to work in a secure manner from a remote location where cybersecurity might not be the best.
How Businesses Can Attract Bleisure TravellersÂ
Make contact before the journey
Whether a hotel, restaurant, activity provider, or car rental company, it’s a good idea to reach out to existing customers and alert them of deals and packages ahead of time. Either contact the traveller directly, or go via corporate travel planners.
Smooth Transitions
Help with planning so travellers can skip research and focus on actual experiences. It builds loyalty and so does understanding the situation of the bleisure traveller. For example, offering suitable accommodation for those who travel with family members, so there is place for both work, and relaxation. Creating children-friendly activities could be a deal-breaker.
Get Them to Stay
Most bleisure travellers want the convenience of staying in the same hotel for the duration of the trip, but need to be seduced with perks, so not to book different accommodation for the leisure part. Free breakfast, discounted partner offers like wellness and spa, or maybe a skip-the-line experience? Be creative and leverage what you know to create a personalised package. Travellers are more inclined to spend on additional activities, as the company is covering airfare and parts of the accommodation.
Highlight the Destination
What’s unique about the destination? How is it best experienced? Give travellers the information they need to for a deeper exploration, perhaps with suggestions that only locals would know? The added allure will create repeat visits, even outside corporate related travel. Apart from safety and affordability, bleisure travellers appreciate easy to navigate cities, a variety of restaurants and activities, so be sure to showcase it via inspirational content.
Bleisure – Work and Play in Harmony
Bleisure has the potential to revolutionise the way we view business travel, turning it into a more holistic, enriching, and sustainable experience. Remote work has enabled professionals to merge their careers with a passion for travel. Instead of treating work and leisure as two separate experiences which never meet, bleisure travellers say they can coexist, creating an optimal environment for deeper, more meaningful travel.
Bleisure transforms trips from surface-level excursions to immersive experiences that benefit travellers, employers, and the destinations they visit. As this trend continues to grow, bleisure has the potential to become the default way to explore the world for professionals who value both their career and personal fulfilment.
Have you tried bleisure travel? Where did you go and how did it feel? Let us know in the comment section! Subscribe to our newsletter and benefit from travel guides, sustainable tourism and luxury travel tips, insightful interviews, and inspirational places to visit. One Planet Journey – The World’s First Deep Travel Magazine.
