8 tips to maximise your Bleisure trip

8 tips to maximise your Bleisure Trip

Mixing business with leisure? How scandalous! Or is it?

Combining business and personal travel into one trip is a growing travel trend. Known as Bleisure, more and more individuals are extending their business trips to include a personal holiday. Around 40 percent of business travellers are bleisure travellers based on a study done by the Global Business Travel Association. This number may have dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic but as travel starts picking up, we can be sure to see bleisure travellers out in full force.

The travel industry research authority Phocuswright did a study finding that 65 percent of companies allow or plan to allow leisure extensions to work trips, showing a growing acceptance of employers who are happy for their staff to embrace bleisure travel. If your boss is not one of them yet, here are the bleisure benefits that might convince them.

BLEISURE BENEFITS TO CONVINCE THE BOSSES

• Encourage use of vacation days
  Some people might have trouble clearing their leave days before the financial year end. Encouraging employees to take some vacation days before or after a business trip is a win-win situation for all. Employers won’t have to manage unused leave and employees get to maximise their time overseas by saving that one or two leave days normally spent on flying to their destination.
  
  
• Better work life balance
  Business trips might be centred around an all important client presentation or working all hours to pull off an overseas event - all stressful situations. Arriving a few days earlier can help an individual to get over jet lag and be fresh for action. Likewise, taking a day or two after official business is great for de-stressing and allows employees to decompress and return to the office ready for the next challenge.
  
  
• Happier employees
  A report published by BridgeStreet Global Hospitality revealed that 78 percent of workers who added a few extra days to a business trip added value to their work assignment. An employee who feels that they are doing important work are happier at work and less likely to quit.
  
  
• More cultural awareness
  Sometimes, employees only shuttle between the office and hotel for the entire duration of the work trip. Having some leisure time to themselves is a good opportunity to take in local sights and immerse themselves in a different culture. This will help individuals to understand and communicate with foreign clients or colleagues better and even bring home new cultural knowledge to share with the office
  
  
  

8 TIPS TO MAXIMISE YOUR BLEISURE TRIP

So are you ready to make the most of your next bleisure trip? Here’s how to get the most bang out of your bleisure buck.

1. Business first
   After all, you have been sent overseas for work so official business should be your first priority. If a project overruns and eats into your planned holiday, do the smart thing and continue working - you can always bargain for more vacation days to make up for the leave days that you burnt on work overseas.
   
   
2. Transparency is key
   Be open with your boss and colleagues before your trip that you will be doing personal travel in addition to official work. The last thing you want is for your unaware superior to see your barhopping selfies on Instagram and think you are skiving.
   
   
3. Make use of weekends and public holidays
   If you are able to schedule your own work trip, plan around the weekend and any local or foreign public holiday to easily get three days of fun without using any more leave days.
   
   
4. Think regionally
   It makes sense to hop on the Eurostar to Paris after your London business trip if you are already familiar with the British sights. Bleisure trips are an opportunity to explore nearby cities especially when they are only a short train/flight away and in the same time zone.
   
   
5. Think long distance
   Not all business trips have to be bleisure. For work trips in neighbouring countries, where you can fly in fresh, work and fly out without skipping a beat, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t schedule in any personal time. If you are flying far, it might just make sense to combine leisure with work - you end up saving on the flight that’s already paid for.
   
   
6. Check what your work insurance covers
   Some company’s corporate travel insurance may not cover employees’ personal travel period during a bleisure trip. So make sure to understand what obligations are covered and don’t forget to purchase your personal travel insurance for the days of leisure.
   
   
7. Think flexible
   Get familiar with the change or cancellation policies before you make your personal bookings in case your work trip gets cancelled.
   
   
8. Do your research
   Chances are, you have extended your work trip by the weekend. To maximise these precious days, find out what you want and can do and see in advance. Time is money, as they say!

 

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Now, before you fly, always check what ongoing COVID-19 restrictions are in place at the destinations you are about to visit. Use our Covid Checker to get all the important information you’ll need - how many PCR/ ART tests to take, if you need to serve any quarantine, what local app to download and other local restrictions and measures to take note of. And remember, BlackBook has over 2.5M hotels globally for you to secure the best room and rates for that perfect blesiure expedition.

 

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