“It’s gone through several evolutions at this point,” says Ed Vanga, head of product at Publicis Sapient for Homes & Villas by Marriott International. “Now, it’s a verb: I’m going to go bleisure.”
Remote work in exotic locations
In the early pandemic days, bleisure travel was a synonym for digital nomad life. Picture a young, single corporate or startup worker whose company goes remote. People started traveling to exotic locations to simultaneously work a 9-to-5 and travel in their spare time. Slowly, the trend picked up to include families as well.
New patterns are emerging within the bleisure category outside the typical remote work stereotype.
The extended business trip
Extending a business trip to accommodate leisure travel with family and friends has existed since long before COVID-19. Still, it’s become a much more accepted practice in recent years.
Picture a married businesswoman heading to a conference in Paris. After the conference, her partner flies to the conference location to meet up, spending a week together in Paris and the South of France. With limited vacation time and a limited budget, it makes sense for consumers to combine business trips with vacations in 2023.
The corporate retreat
The third category of bleisure travel, corporate retreats, has transformed to take on a whole new meaning in a remote work–fueled world and is quickly becoming a staple of bleisure travel.
Corporate retreats used to describe C-suite executives flying to a luxurious location to discuss big ideas, or on the other end of the spectrum, a day of out-of-the-box brainstorming at the office. Now, they’re a modern combination of vacation and team bonding.
Also known as company offsites, these corporate trips gather teams, departments, intern classes or entire companies together for a vacation in a new destination. Maybe it’s a thriving cultural metropolis like London. It could even be the Grand Canyon.
The goal of these trips is to allow co-workers to meet face to face, which is often a first for many who live on opposite sides of the country, or even the world.