Egencia has announced findings from the Egencia 2018 Bleisure Trends study, uncovering the trends, behaviors and motivators behind bleisure travel, the practice of tacking on leisure portions to business trips. Polling 9,000 Egencia users across North America, Asia Pacific and Europe, 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.
Perception and policy matter in business travel, with high attention paid to the optics of the practice. Twenty percent of business travelers have foregone adding leisure portions to their trips because of how it may look to their employer. Business travelers in Asia are the most conscious of this at 32 percent, with North America and Europe following at 20 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
“The insight that many business travelers have skipped bleisure trips due to employer perception reveals an opportunity for differentiation in the race for top talent,” said Wendy White, vice president of marketing at Egencia, in a written statement. “With more companies today prioritizing 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 minimize 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 percent) of Egencia global business travelers take less than six business trips per year on average, and 68 percent take at least one bleisure trip per year.
When it comes to activities, 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 percent of North America business travelers prioritizing location, compared to 25 percent in the EU and Asia.
- Proximity to the weekend and proximity to friends and family came in a close second and third for global respondents, at 23 percent and 16 percent respectively.
- Sight-seeing is the most popular bleisure activity for business travelers across all regions.
Bleisure is Well-Planned:
- Seventy-four percent of North American business travelers are either planning or considering a bleisure trip in the next 6 months, compared to 87 percent in Asia and 68 percent in Europe.
- Half of Asia business travelers are planning a bleisure trip this year, compared to 41 percent of North Americans and 32 percent or Europeans.
- Bleisure trips are a big 2018 resolution: 37 percent of Asia business travelers, 25 percent of Europeans and 20 percent of North Americans made it one of theirs.
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