If you thought standard corporate travel was bad, brace yourself. The travel industry gave us the hideous portmanteau “bleisure” travel to describe tacking personal holiday days onto the end of a soul crushing business trip. Apparently, sitting in a dull hotel conference room for three days becomes far more exciting if you stay an extra forty eight hours to stare at historical monuments by yourself.
Workplace consultants actually coined the term back in 2009, but flexible working arrangements gave it a second life. Now, millions of workers add extra days to business trips, bring their partners along for trade shows, or pretend to work from a sunbed.
Young Workers Crave Glamour on the Company Dime
Recent data shows that almost everyone with a suit and a company credit card embraces this trend. Travel app Skyscanner discovered that eighty three percent of business travellers occasionally mix work with leisure. Meanwhile, four out of ten corporate bookers report that standard business trips are getting much longer.
The Massive Business Behind Blending Work and Play
Booking.com found that places like New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Orlando top the list for people combining business and pleasure. Washington DC and Boston also feature heavily, presumably for people who find political museums deeply thrilling after a long day of spreadsheets.
This silly sounding trend generates staggering sums of real cash. Market researchers valued the global bleisure market at roughly 685 billion dollars recently, and they expect that figure to swell to nearly 1.7 trillion dollars in the coming years. Combining spreadsheets with sightseeing is officially big business.
If you know someone currently pretending to work from a hotel pool while on a corporate retreat, pass this along so they know the secret is out.
Related Topics: Travel
