Bleisure! – The Official Word For Business Travel

This is an article from our Editor Helen DuvalThere is a new ‘B’ word out there and for today’s busy execs travelling the length and breadth of the country as well as internationally, it is a welcome one – Bleisure! While many senior executives over the age of 45 have been practising the art of Bleisure for some time, millennials have been quick to catch on and now some even insist that this is the way they will do business in the 21st Century.The idea of bringing business and travel together has actually been around for quite some time, but it is garnering a real popularity, particularly with the next generation of executives and directors, and the term has now even found its way into some dictionaries.Most people are rejecting relentless travelling towards standardised, bleak hotel rooms, preferring instead to include a little culture on their journeys and to stay somewhere they can actually relax at the end of a long car journey. Some top executives are even demanding that their trips become more culturally enhanced with ‘bleisure’ now fast becoming a business ‘must have.’As a travel trend bleisure allows people to add a couple of days around a business trip to be able to completely reinvigorate themselves while on the road. With healthy minds being a big topic of discussion it also ties-in well to the ethos of a good work-life balance, that is not just for the senior executives.The idea of a healthy body and mind is gathering pace with the need to switch off and relax being proven to be important all round. CEOs are recognising that there is a need to support this type of business travel for their staff as it gets the best out of employees.Incorporating holiday time at the beginning or end of a business trip does not blur the boundaries of the business, if anything it recharges the batteries to push harder for the deal. So it should be guilt free.With so many people now being instantly accessible on phones and laptops, with texts and emails pinging through their notifications almost 24 hours a day, there is perhaps a need, more than ever before, to have some real downtime. Naturally travelling for work can be exhausting with early morning flights, long motorway jaunts and late night international conference calls, all of us are only a ping away from urgent work that needs to be done when the work meter is running.As more companies acknowledge the stresses and strains of work without breaks, being able to mesh working duties with a little rest and relaxation makes work a lot more enjoyable and undoubtedly even more fruitful, with many employers paying closer attention to what is good for their team.Statistics show that millennials are taking life at a much more leisurely pace and are taking full ad-vantage of the technology they have been raised on, by adapting it to work for them rather than the other way round. It seems a perfectly natural option for them to take work with them as they enjoy the Bleisure experience and a more stable work-life balance.So next time there is a long journey on the cards think about the length of the trip, the location and all that is expected to be achieved. Evaluating time and looking at ways to personalise each trip will make it a unique rather than mundane experience.Even for the most seasoned traveller work can be fun by optimising the time spent away from home. Trivago, Skyscanner and Expedia to name a few, have been around for quite some time and offer simultaneous booking options, with Tripadvisor allowing the experienced travellers to share and suggest about their best Bleisure experiences. For the more luxurious business trip then companies such as www.worldtravelservice.com or www.prestigetravel.com promise personalised attentionAs business trips become lengthened and incorporated into short vacations, bleisure is now a lifestyle choice for many executives!