New Report: What Influences the Bleisure Traveler

According to CNN, a bleisure traveler as someone who puts the “fun” in a business trip. While we tend to agree, we wanted to dig in further to find out more about this segment of travelers who add an extra day (or more) to a business trip for leisure purposes – something many of us have likely done on many occasions. We know (firsthand even) that many business travelers turn their trips into “bleisure” trips, but why? What type of traveler is doing this, and what influences their decision to do so?

B8K551.jpgOur new study, Profile of the American Bleisure Traveler, with Luth Research provides an inside look at the bleisure traveler, where they are going, and why they are turning their business trip into a bleisure one.

So, what entices a business traveler to book a bleisure trip? Destination is the leading factor in turning business travel into bleisure, especially considering most bleisure travelers (84 percent) will stay in the same city for their whole trip, and more than 80 percent also stay in the same hotel.

Other factors include:

  • 66% reported they would book if they were traveling to an exciting city/location
  • 85% highly consider a destination if they have great sightseeing locations
  • 33% were influenced by events going on in that area (a convention, concert, show, etc.)

When someone books a typical vacation, there is generally a lot of dreaming and research involved to pick out the right location, accommodations, activities, and more. In fact, our recent Traveler’s Path to Purchase study showed that American travelers visit up to 140 travel sites in the 45 days leading up to an online travel purchase.

However, for bleisure travelers, the research and consideration phases are much shorter. Once someone has considered taking a bleisure trip, the path to booking is typically one to four weeks; more than 40 percent said they would book all or most of their leisure activities or extended hotel stay within this time period.

For more information on the bleisure traveler, {{cta(‘3f931562-0cda-4e84-ad11-1133694df8a5’)}}

Monya Mandich

Vice President, Media Solutions Marketing

Monya Mandich is the VP, Marketing of Expedia Group Media Solutions and oversees all integrated marketing and communications activities for the brand. In her role, she is responsible for raising awareness of digital media opportunities for partners across the Expedia Group suite of leading global travel brands. With nearly two decades of experience, she evangelizes a thought leadership approach both externally and internally centered on data-driven insights, which has resulted in travel and marketing industry recognition and accolades. Monya previously managed strategic partnership development, executing strategies for top-tier partnerships, maximizing traffic and revenue for Expedia.com. She started her career in the travel space at VacationSpot.com, where she ran the B2B marketing and customer acquisition efforts for the vacation rental booking site. Monya is on the board of directors for Destinations International and the U.S. Travel, and also participates on the advisory committee for U.S. Travel's Project: Time Off, which aims to shift thinking around the health, business and economic value of personal time off, Monya was also recognized as one of HSMAI’s Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing. She is a graduate of Western Washington University and lives in the Seattle area with her family.

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