A worker heading to New York City for a business trip might be tempted to stay a few days more for pleasure – or leisure. Photo / AFP
A new Flight Centre survey found younger workers were more likely to fancy adding a few days of leisure to business trips.
But there may be nuances, depending on what sector you’re in, if you want a so-called “bleisure” or blended travel trip yourself.
Professor Jarrod Haar, dean’s chair in management and Māori business at Massey University, said New Zealand travellers might be keener to tack on a few days to a far-flung destination rather than on a visit to Sydney.
Haar said the average worker, if told they’d get to visit a new client in New York, would be thinking their Christmases all arrived at once.
But making bleisure a reality might hit some resistance.
“Then the accountant becomes the stick in the mud and says ‘I’m not sure of the tax implications’.”
Flight Centre said 64% of New Zealand respondents in a January survey wanted to extend their work trips for a personal holiday, making their work trip a “bleisure trip”.
For the youngest workers, in Generation Z, 74% of respondents showed interest in combining business and leisure travel.
Only 46% of Baby Boomers, who are all at least 60 years old, felt the same way.
Haar said younger workers with no dependent children and minimal overseas travel experience would probably be keener than older peers to tack a leisure trip on to a work journey.
Haar told the Herald some job hunters might want to mull what travel perks or flexible work arrangements to negotiate before taking on a new job.
“If you’re being headhunted, you’re totally in the driver’s seat.”
He said some aspiring employees might say: “I want to work a month a year overseas.”
He said the concept of bleisure might be “a little bit romanticised” but was still realistic for some workers.
The situation was probably more complicated for workers in the public service, where there was currently little tolerance and seemingly no budget for travel beyond the bare minimum.
Thousands of civil servants have been asked to identify potential areas for more cost-cutting in a mass survey across every government agency.
“There is no travel budget. You’re trying to strip [the] budget to keep people,” Haar added.
The Auditor-General’s advice on controlling sensitive expenditure urged public-sector agencies to consider technology-enabled solutions as opposed to travel in person.
As for bleisure, the Auditor-General advised: “Staff members can go on private travel before, during, or at the end of travel paid by their organisation, provided there is no additional cost to the organisation and the private travel is only incidental to the business purpose of the travel.”
Flight Centre said the survey results marked a big shift in how employees approached travel for work, with 30% of those surveyed already having taken a bleisure trip.
And Angie Forsyth, the New Zealand general manager for business travel management company Corporate Traveller, said recent data from her company also seemed to indicate bleisure was more than a fad.
“The growing trend is reflected in corporate travellers' data, which shows that extended stays are on the rise across all travel periods.”
Forsyth said that last year one-day trips grew at the slowest rate but stays of six to seven days registered a 10% increase on the previous year.
“This indicates that workers are opting for longer stays, incorporating time for personal activities into their business travels,” Forsyth added.
Caitlin Langlands, customer success manager at jobs marketplace Zeil, said the ability to work remotely and blend business and leisure travel was increasingly influencing job decisions.
“Job seekers are looking for roles that allow them to integrate travel, remote work and personal time seamlessly,” Langlands said.
She said companies should embrace the bleisure trend and recognise its potential to boost employee engagement and productivity.
“By allowing workers to combine business with leisure, companies can enhance the work-life balance of employees while attracting and retaining top talent.”
In a 2020 Global Business Travel Association survey, 82% of corporate travel managers believed their workers would be interested in bleisure trips.
Last August, research data and analytics technology group YouGov said a slight majority of professionals in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and India had taken work trips in the preceding two years.