Egencia¨, a leading global travel management company, has announced findings from the Egencia 2018 Bleisure Trends study, uncovering the trends, behaviours and motivators behind bleisure travel, the practice of tacking on leisure portions to business trips. Polling 9,000 Egencia users acrossÊNorth America,ÊAsia PacificÊandÊEurope, the study illustrates that while bleisure travel is on the rise, employer perception, destination and proximity to the weekend all play into the bleisure decision-making process.Ê
Perception and policy matter in business travel, with high attention paid to the optics of the practice. Twenty per cent of business travellers have foregone adding leisure portions to their trips because of how it may look to their employer. Business travellers inÊAsiaÊare the most conscious of this at 32 per cent, withÊNorth AmericaÊandÊEuropeÊfollowing at 20 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
“The insight that many business travellers have skipped bleisure trips due to employer perception reveals an opportunity for differentiation in the race for top talent,” saidÊWendy White, vice president of marketing at Egencia. “With more companies today prioritising work-life balance, it may be time to start including bleisure in your travel program to invest in employees and encourage them to make every trip count.”
Proximity to the weekend may minimise that perception, with nearly one-quarter of respondents saying this impacts their decision. Of those who take the bleisure dive, less than two percent globally have billed back bleisure expenses to their companies.
Additional findings include: a majority (55 per cent) of Egencia global business travellers take less than six business trips per year on average, and 68 percent take at least one bleisure trip per year.
The destination and sight-seeing are top of mind:
- Destination location is by far the biggest factor in determining whether or not to take a bleisure trip, with 30 per cent ofÊNorth AmericaÊbusiness travellers prioritising location, compared to 25 per cent in the EU andÊAsia.
- Proximity to the weekend and proximity to friends and family came in a close second and third for global respondents, at 23 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.
- Sight-seeing is the most popular bleisure activity for business travellers across all regions.
Bleisure is well-planned:
- Seventy-four per cent of North American business travellers are either planning or considering a bleisure trip in the next 6 months, compared to 87 per cent inÊAsiaÊand 68 per cent inÊEurope.
- Half ofÊAsiaÊbusiness travellers are planning a bleisure trip this year, compared to 41 per cent of North Americans and 32 per cent or Europeans.
- Bleisure trips are a big 2018 resolution: 37 per cent ofÊAsiaÊbusiness travellers, 25 per cent of Europeans and 20 per cent of North Americans made it one of theirs.
To help you make the most out of your next bleisure trip, check out theÊcity guidesÊfrom our Top 100 Preferred Corporate Hotel awards program.
