In this opinion piece, David Fastuca , CMO and co-founder of corporate travel platform Travelport Locomote, shares his insights into getting the most out of your business trip, for both employees and businesses.

We’re constantly looking for ways to maximise our annual leave; whether it’s taking advantage of public holidays or ‘pulling a sickie’, the nation is determined to get the most out of a well-deserved break.

Enter ‘bleisure’, the latest buzzword which describes where travellers mix their business trips with leisure time, allowing them to save money and time.

While this may seem like a HR nightmare for businesses, it’s an underused opportunity to help employees improve performance and therefore an untapped advantage for businesses. According to a recent travel report, 78% of respondents agreed that adding leisure days to business travel adds value to work assignments – which means that bleisure could improve employee happiness and engagement without added business costs.

As we’re entering the age of bleisure, more and more people realise the opportunities and the positive impact of extending work trips into holidays. When you consider how travel time between destinations, on board airplanes, and at hotels, is not deemed as lost business hours, you start to comprehend the untapped potential of this new trend fully.

Therefore, it’s no wonder that 46 per cent of people add personal travel days to business travel “every trip” or to “most trips.” By adding personal days to business trips, employees can add excitement to the trips that they have to take while enjoying things they want to do – like seeing the sights, visiting friends and family, or relaxing when they’re not working.

As the number of employees subscribing to this combination of corporate and leisure travel continues to grow, more businesses will need to let workers take bleisure trips to promote healthy work/life balance. Six out of ten people say they are more likely to mix business and pleasure on trips compared to five years ago, which is a substantial increase and shows that bleisure trips are becoming the holiday of the future.

Three key factors of bleisure which benefit businesses:

Positive employees are productive employees

Staff travel can be a mental and physical burden on employees. Movements like bleisure travel are born from the idea that the happier the corporate traveller, the more productive they are overseas, and the better return on investment the business enjoys from its corporate travel program.

Bleisure travel demonstrates commitment to employees

Including formal bleisure policies into your corporate travel program sends the message to employees that their comfort is not an afterthought during staff travel. Encouraging a positive workplace culture is essential to any business in any industry, and bleisure travel is an attractive asset in your corporate travel program.

Compliant workers rewarded with ‘bleisure’

Staff travel can be a burden on the bottom line when businesses suffer from overspending employees. In fact, employee overspending can make up as much as one third of a business’ travel and expense budget.

Incentives and rewards schemes are a sound strategy for CFOs and Travel Managers looking to reduce employee overspending. Staff travellers who comply with corporate travel policies can be financially rewarded or offered other benefits like bleisure travel.

Bleisure travel is proven to be a productive investment for both businesses and employees, but it goes without saying that bleisure trips cost money.

In order for businesses to make bleisure worthwhile, travel managers will need to roll out services that ensure the ongoing affordability of corporate travel, so their business can continue to enjoy the positive return on investment of business travel, and their employees can continue to make the most of.