Bleisure Travel Is Not New, But It Certainly Is Now More Recognized

When business travel was cut off due to the pandemic, U.S. airlines first started making predictions of when it would all return. As hybrid work became more common, and many businesses saw reduced travel as an expense saving they’d like to keep, the tone shifted into ways to replace the lost business traffic. Given that business passengers have paid three to five times the commodity price average, this isn’t easy. But airlines knew if they didn’t say they could replace lost business traffic, they would have to explain how they would survive without it. This is when the terms Bleisure, or blended travel, and the premium leisure traveler, came into regular discussions.

While these terms are new, the travelers aren’t. People have always combined business and leisure trips, and there have always been leisure travelers willing to pay more for a nicer experience. What is really new is how airlines, and other travel sectors, are focusing on this blended travel idea and recognizing it for what it is. This does create opportunity for the large U.S. airlines though it won’t be a one to one trade for the lost corporate traveler. It also creates some new risks.

What Blended Travel Is

Have you ever gone to a trade show in Las Vegas and stayed an extra day to see Cirque du Soleil or another show? How about going to a business event and taking the afternoon off to play a round of golf? Then you are a bleisure traveler, though the idea of this kind of travel is expanding largely because of hybrid work. Since more people can work from any location, it is easier to arrive early or stay a few days extra when taking a business trip because work can still get done.

This kind of travel, while common, has never formally been addressed by industry marketing. Companies have historically paid for employees to travel to see and schmooze clients, visit sites, attend conferences, and peruse trade show floors. Any extra, personal time has been “snuck in” on the side, or in some cases maybe an extra night hotel supported by the company. The airline industry, though, forced their thinking to business travelers and leisure travelers, with no intersection between the two.

How Airlines Can Attract More

The first step to encourage this kind of travel and win more of it is to identify what it is. Airlines have done this, again as a need to rationalize why a loss of business travel doesn’t mean the sky is falling. Now that they have, the next step is to create and offer specific products that could be pitched to companies and individuals.

One example would be flight flexibility on a scheduled business trip. Say a company wants a few of its people to attend a trade show in another city, work the booth, and meet with people who attend the show. The show is from Wednesday to Friday, and ends early enough on Friday to reasonably get a flight home. The airline could allow, within their corporate deal structure, to allow participants to book the corporate rate for a single flight in and out but over a much wider time frame. Some may want to arrive early to have some fun, while others may want to stay the weekend or longer.

More aggressively, the airline could allow another trip or trips to a spouse, friend, or family to meet up with the trade show participant when their business is done. This would be done at the same corporate rate or even lower, encouraging a longer stay and allowing a family to join in.

Partnering With Hotels Is Better

Even more incentivizing would be for airlines to partner with hotels to make a sweeter offer. This could obviously mean extra hotel nights at aggressive rates, or added rooms for family for certain days. This kind of offer might get some who wouldn’t, on their own, think about adding days for fun into thinking they should. The best offers would be to use the same property as the business portion.

This is all a bit tricky. The company paying for the travel would have to agree to this extra time, and the airline and hotel would have to think about the opportunity cost of the different days. Still, there are clearly times when the changed flights could be good for the airline, or the extra rooms for the hotel would be at compensatory rates.

The Risks Of Bleisure

When no one spoke of this kind of travel, travelers would take advantage of whatever their company would let them do in terms or early arrival or later stay. What they did during this time was implicitly considered part of the business trip, again unless this was agreed beforehand that it wasn’t. There is inherent risk with bleisure traffic.

Once the paying company participates in the decision to allow their employee to add some leisure time with their business trip, they must face the realty of what this means in terms of liability. If an employee trips and breaks a bone while on the trade show floor, no one would question that they were hurt at work. But if the show ends on Friday, and the employee spends the weekend in part because of deal presented, and then breaks a bone, is she at work? The legal issues here are unclear, but unfortunately there are many lawyers who would like to make hay with this.

Bleisure Doesn’t Fix The Lost Business Problem

The problem with even 10% permanently lost business travel is that this represents a much greater percentage loss of revenue. When corporate travelers have been paying three to five times more than the promotional fares, if the replacement travelers do not pay these rates then the airline needs more of them. It’s not realistic that added trip times would come at the same rates. More importantly, if the traveler can arrange their own extras at much lower rates, they will do so.

The myth that belisure travelers, with premium leisure travelers, will close the revenue gap from lost business travelers is just that — a myth. Some airline leaders have taken a head-in-the-sand view that business will all return or that there are suitable replacements. More interesting is what Delta airlines has reported, which is that business revenue has eclipsed 2019 but on lower volume and higher rates. If this is a reality for all, the identification of passengers who pay more than the lowest rates, even if they don’t pay as much as corporate travelers, is a worthwhile effort as it will increase total revenue per ASM.