Depok, July 20, 2024 - The world of business travel is poised for substantial changes and transformations in this new era. Millions of professionals worldwide embark on business journeys annually. Business travel differs from leisure travel, but a new trend has emerged over time that combines business and tourist travel, known as the 'bleisure trend'. This trend is gaining popularity and is prevalent in the working world, where the trip's primary focus is business-related, with the recreational aspect serving as a beneficial addition for overall tourist satisfaction.
But what makes this trend so popular? of course because there are many benefits that the trend can bring about to both travelers and their employees. One of the obvious benefits is how the traveler can get some time dedicated to exploring the location at their own leisure. More importantly, it comes at a reduced cost. Morever, it helps prevent burnout from non-stop work and makes them happier. This means maintaining a better quality of work in a company, and this trend should be implemented.
A major factor behind this trend is the changing demographics of the workforce, with a shift towards a younger generation. There is a growing interest among younger workers to integrate travel for work with leisure pursuits, which is causing a transformation in the dynamics of corporate travel. This "bleisure" trend provides flexible travel schedules and an opportunity to relax for employees who are on the go. This is excellent news for hotels since it signifies that visitors are reserving accommodations longer than their events will last.
Overall, this concept is very important to apply to add new things to the work being done, as said by Richard Quest "This is an era where workers not only want to work hard, but also want to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Bleisure not only provides an opportunity to explore new places, but also helps strengthen bonds among teams." That's how it should be implemented.
Seeing every change that occurs from this trend, companies serving the business travel industry have started to respond. But it cannot be denied that one of the biggest obstacles to the journey is logistics. While employers are more willing to offer their employees free time to enjoy while running a business, they may not be as willing to pay for it. So, what are companies doing to cater for this? We can use mobility as a service, or 'MaaS'; this is a model that is slowly changing transportation. One of the main advantages of MaaS is how it puts usability and ease of use at the forefront of the experience by making it more accessible in terms of design as well as integrating multiple forms of transportation into one place.
The emergence of the bleisure tourism trend is undoubtedly an excellent first step, especially in increasing the movement of domestic tourists. I think this trend will continue to grow and be popular in the future if it continues to be managed well and taken into account in planning to a certain extent, bleisure travel seems to be a very positive change. Of course, the blurring of work and life there can be worrying and conflicting, but it also offers new opportunities for travelers. They can get more out of their travel and increase their satisfaction with their quality of life. This will become easier as new solutions begin to be implemented that can better facilitate the separation of payments for business and leisure, whether that is an extra day in a hotel or a few extra trips.
