What brings you here? Business or pleasure? For an increasing number of travelers, the answer is both.
While there was a post-pandemic rush to travel ― dubbed “revenge travel” after seasons spent in lockdown ― that overall trend has recently softened as consumers have cut back on vacations to deal with a rising cost of living. For those still seeking a vacation, blended or “bleisure” travel is the perfect solution.
Bleisure travel ― a portmanteau of “business” and “leisure” ― is when you tack on a couple of days to a work trip so you get to have a little fun and explore the location before heading home. (The trend is like the kosher, work-approved version of “hush trips,” another work-from-home-inspired trend in which employees work remotely from a trip location without notifying their employer.)
Sarah Stone, the editor-in-chief at the travel site Frayed Passport, traveled this way extensively back in her corporate days.
Her favorite bleisure trip was to New Zealand. After a work conference and some meetings in Auckland, her husband joined her and the couple took a weeklong road trip around the North Island, visiting Hawke’s Bay, Napier, Taupo and a few other spots.
“If your company can cover transportation and accommodation, or at least part of it, that’s a massive portion of your trip that you don’t have to worry about,” Stone said.
How’d she swing it? Her employer was covering her airfare, hotel and meals during the conference, but before she booked anything, she asked if she could extend the trip by a week while handling her own expenses for that portion of it.
“I made the case that it would be better to get all of my follow-ups and notes done before taking another 14-hour flight, and it worked out great,” Stone said.
“On the road trip, I checked in a couple times a day and got all of my high-priority messages out and organized,” she said. “I definitely breathed easier knowing that important information wasn’t falling through the cracks due to hectic travel scheduling and jet lag.”
Bleisure travel bookings like Stone’s are up four times year-over-year, according to an October report by corporate travel and expense management platform Navan.
“The most popular time for bleisure travel is during the confluence of conference season and shoulder season, when the weather’s still great, but prices and crowds decline,” said Rich Liu, CEO of Navan Travel, the company’s travel division.
The continued…
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