All Work and No Play? Let’s Talk About Bleisure

Guest post by our own Laura Pilla – Account Manager

There is a new trendy term floating around the corporate travel world, one you might have even heard before: bleisure. “Bleisure” is the combination of leisure and business and was born from the idea of adding leisure activities on to business trips. There can be many benefits for the companies who allow this type of thing, but it’s important to know that bleisure does work best when the specifics are noted in the company travel policy. Spelling out exactly what your company will pay for and exactly what the traveler is responsible for is highly recommended. How will the expenses be handled? Will the company pay the upfront cost or does everything need to be separated for expenses? Can plus ones be booked via the company TMC? These are all things the traveler needs to ask beforehand.

In my experience, when companies allow bleisure travel, their employees feel more well-rounded and tend to be happier in their positions. Even if it’s just a stroll around the city center or dinner in a local hot spot, employees enjoy having a little bit of leisurely freedom. This can also give business travelers an edge by getting them familiar with the surroundings of the area that the client is in. This could result in a deeper relationship with the client and help meetings to potentially go more smoothly. Not to mention stress levels go down.

It’s no secret that being on the road can be lonely at times. Being able to have your family or spouse on a business trip can help greatly with the work/family balance. Tacking some time onto a business trip that you already must take in order to have a little fun with your family can alleviate some of the out-of-pocket expenses and allow for opportunities that may never have presented themselves otherwise. It’s best to plan these bleisure trips ahead of time so you can avoid any business trips where your work schedule is heavy.

One tip that I think everyone planning a bleisure trip should keep in mind: factor in the weekends. Being able to incorporate the weekend into your bleisure trip is a big bonus because it will allow you to avoid using a large number of vacation days for one bleisure trip. Plus, it’s much easier for coworkers to cover the one or two extra days you might be gone as opposed to an entire week.

So if you have a business trip coming up on your calendar, and you deem the location worthy, I would definitely recommend asking about making it a bleisure trip.