The strong comeback of business travel is making companies increase the number of domestic and international business trips. Employees have started traveling to various destinations regularly to accomplish specific business travel goals.
Also, they will get opportunities to blend work commitments and leisure activities by leveraging the bleisure travel benefits supported by employers. While traveling for work, employees these days have the option to leverage different bleisure options.
For instance, some employees can extend work trips for leisure purposes, while others can enjoy work trips with family or friends. That is why; every employee must refer to the organizational travel policies to decide the right way to blend work and leisure during business trips. Also, they should follow some simple best practices to enjoy the bleisure trip along with achieving business travel goals.
10 Ways Business Travelers Can Enjoy Bleisure Trips in the Right Way
1. Prioritize Work over Leisure
Organizations support bleisure travel to make business trips successful by keeping employees stress-free. While planning bleisure trips, you must prioritize work over leisure. You need to ensure that the extended work trip does not impact the outcome of the meeting.
For instance, you should consider flying out earlier when there is a tight deadline for the commencement or completion of an important project. Likewise, you should not indulge in leisure activities when your coworkers have to work longer hours on the project.
2. Maintain Transparency
Many companies these days allow employees to combine work and leisure while updating travel policies after the pandemic. But they require employees to get approval from managers or the HR department to indulge in leisure activities during business trips.
You must convey your intention to combine work and leisure while sending business travel requests. Transparency is essential to avoid misunderstandings with coworkers or superiors after the business trip.
3. Comply with Organizational Travel Policy
Companies these days define reimbursable and non-reimbursable travel expenses by implementing elaborate travel policies. They reimburse most travel expenses incurred by an employee for work purposes.
But they reimburse only specific expenses incurred by employees for leisure purposes. You must understand your organization’s travel policy to identify reimbursable leisure costs. The understanding will help you avoid overspending and speed up travel expense reimbursements.
4. Include Weekends in the Trip Schedule
You can indulge in additional leisure activities on the business trip by spending a weekend in the business travel destination. While scheduling professional activities, you should explore ways to avoid paid leaves by leveraging weekends.
You can leverage weekends by arriving at the destination on Saturday or leaving the destination on Sunday. However, you must not miss the chance to add two weekends to week-long business trips.
5. Customize Your Travel Packing List
While making trip-specific travel packing lists, work travelers prioritize business attire or formal attire over casual attire. But you have to make several changes to the business travel packing list if you want to combine work and leisure.
Your updated travel packing list should include active casual, rugged casual, and smart casual attires along with flip flops. However, you must not forget to include a swimsuit which you can wear while relaxing by the pool in the hotel.
6. Spend Time with Friends
Many companies these days allow employees to take their partner, family member, or friend on bleisure trips. You should request your partner or friend to join you on the bleisure trip if your company’s travel policies allow it.
Otherwise, you can use the bleisure trip as an opportunity to spend time with your friends living in the business travel destination. They will help you experience the distinct culture of the city by interacting with the local people.
7. Plan Leisure Activities in Advance
Bleisure trips are much shorter than leisure trips. You get opportunities to indulge in leisure activities for a few days after completing work commitments. That is why; you must decide the things to do and places to see in the travel destination in advance.
Also, you can enjoy the trip more by doing the things you want to do. For instance, you should spend a short time exploring museums and art galleries if you are interested in experiencing the city’s artistic heritage.
8. Make the Most Out of the Downtime
You can extend work trips for leisure purposes if your company supports bleisure travel. But you can make a work trip more exciting only by making the most out of the downtime. You can explore the city’s distinct culture after completing work commitments by joining heritage walks, visiting eateries popular with local people, and taking leisurely walks.
9. Consider Exploring a Different City
Europe and America create opportunities for you to explore multiple cities during the same bleisure trip. You can travel from one popular travel destination to another in a few hours by taking a train ride. While planning bleisure trips, you should explore ways to spend time in cities other than the business travel destination. You can make the bleisure trip more exciting by experiencing cultural differences between two popular cities.
10. Focus on Safety and Security
Companies ensure the safety and security of employees traveling for work by meeting duty of care responsibilities. Most companies these days implement business travel management software that comes with a built-in duty-of-care solution. Employees can access the software to manage travel risks by getting support in real-time.
But organizational travel policies often extend the duty of care solutions only to the business part of the business trip. Employees have to explore ways to remain safe and secure during an extended business trip. Hence, you must focus on remaining safe while indulging in leisure activities if your company does not extend the duty of care solution for the entire bleisure trip.
Conclusion
Most organizations these days support bleisure travel to make business trips successful by keeping work travelers stress-free. Hence, work travelers have the option to indulge in leisure activities before or after meeting work commitments. But they must prioritize work commitments over leisure activities. Also, they should follow some best practices to manage work and leisure efficiently and simultaneously.
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