The rise of bleisure travel shows how employees plan to maximize their work trips in 2025

01.01.2025 - 10:45 / insider.com

When 25-year-old Josh Nichols had a short work trip to Hamburg, Germany, he and a coworker decided to add a couple extra days to stop by Belgium and France, two places he'd never been.

"I was already in Europe," Nichols, who works as an analyst for United Airlines, told Business Insider, "so I'm like, 'Let me just hop down and see these other countries.'"

The combination of business and leisure travel has become so popular that it has a name: bleisure travel, also referred to as blended travel.

While the trend has been growing for years, it got an extra boost during the pandemic when travel restrictions were lifted and business travel picked up again. In early 2022, American Airlines said more than half of its recently booked trips had been a mix of business and leisure travel, up from a historic average of around 20 to 25%.

A survey published by the American Hotel and Lodging Association in 2023 found nearly half of business travelerssaid they'd extended a work trip in the previous year, and 84% said they were interested in bleisure. Hilton's 2025 Travel Trends Report said nearly 30% of global travelers now take trips with "frolleagues" — colleagues who are also friends.

Kenny Totten, founder and COO of AllFly, which specializes in corporate group travel, told BI that companies are embracing the trend and making it easier for their employees to do it as a way to attract and retain talent.

"About one in four corporate travelers will either come early or they'll extend their trip later, so it's been a very big trend for us," he said.

Bleisure can take several forms, but it often occurs when an employee is already on a business trip. While on the work trip, the employee might do sightseeing in their free time or meet up with a friend or family member who lives in the place they're visiting. Many bleisure travelers extend their trips to have full days to explore while off the clock.

"Anything that lets me try something new when I would otherwise just kind of sit in my hotel and wait for the next day of meetings to come is something I'd consider bleisure," Nichols said.

AllFly, which books travel for companies ranging from 50 to over 10,000 employees, has adapted the way it books trips in response to the growing demand for bleisure. It has added features that make it easy for its clients to let employees book flights for several days before or after the actual planned work event.

"The more luxurious the destination, the more people extend," Totten said, adding when AllFly coordinates work trips to Hawaii, 42% of people extend their trip.

The company also added a split pay feature, which allows employees to book all the travel through their platform but then easily split up how much the employer covers.