Rising trend of 'bleisure' trips gives boost to travel industry

New Delhi: Bleisure travel has become a commonly used term for travellers that combine a business trip with leisure. With the trend catching up among the corporate world, organisations are increasingly arranging trips where professionals mix leisure with business.

This serves to provide a much needed respite to professionals while also taking care of the business needs. The trend has given a major boost to travel solution providers who are now crafting intelligent campaigns and packages to attract bleisure seekers.

For hoteliers and travel suppliers, bleisure travellers offer a clear opportunity to increase revenues from business travellers extending stays. The travel providers are themselves approaching companies with offers and discounts at large to lure more and more people for the bleisure experience.

"Tourism is on a roll these days with companies initiating more bleisure trips. We get regular queries especially from the young entrepreneurs and business travellers who are rewriting the rules of the corporate game. Also, a majority of people get their families along with them on such trips. This new wave is a definite boost to the travel industry," said Kapil Goswamy, Founder of BigBreaks.com.

"There has been about 40%-45% increase in the bleisure tourism since last 7-8 months as we have seen a rapid increase in the number of bleisure trips being taken by Indians, both within the country and to foreign destinations," he added.

"Also, 15 % of those are the younger travelers, aged between 20 to 25, who are most likely to blur their business and leisure trips. These travellers tend to take one or two bleisure trips each year, regardless of demographic segment or travel frequency. Usually, longer the flight, the higher the likelihood for bleisure."

"There are a number of frequently visited business destinations like Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Hong Kong, Turkey as well as London, which are obviously financial and industrial hubs, but in addition they offer excellent leisure facilities like top of the line restaurants, shopping opportunities, theatres as well as theme parks, hence their popularity has grown, and we often see top executives, CEO's of companies taking their spouses along for business trips to such destinations, and combining business and leisure, sometimes by even adding a weekend stay in one of these destinations."

Among Indian destinations popular for bleisure trips are Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore as well as Kochi, as these cities offer great leisure facilities, top class hotels etc., besides being corporate hubs.