Ascend Summer 2019 | Page 23

I recently traveled to Mexico City for a business review meeting with one of our partners, Corporate Travel Services (CTS). This time, I invited my wife to join me so we could squeeze in a little vacation time. I was able to spend a day in meetings with CTS and added on a couple of days of vacation time for touring. This is the concept of ‘Bleisure’ – combining a business trip with some leisure time to improve employee satisfaction with business travel. WHO’S DOING BLEISURE TRAVEL? According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the average bleisure traveler takes seven work trips a year. When combining business and leisure, travelers extend their stay for an average of three days. They tend to work for larger companies, with an average of 950+ employees. Among these workers, 58% have children at home, and 44% report that they travel with someone else for the vacation portion of their trip. The reasons they cite for extending their business trip include the desire to visit a location where they enjoy spending time, a chance to visit a new destination – as a way to take a cost-effective vacation – and simply needing time away from home and work. ADVANCE PLANNING FOR BLEISURE TIME Spending your free time in a new city or the surrounding area can be intimidating when you’ve never been there and don’t know which areas to avoid. When I realized that I’d be spending a few extra days in Mexico City, I reached out to a local expert, a highly recommended tour guide to help me put together an itinerary. Since I also wanted to impress my wife a bit, I splurged on a guided, private tour. We commissioned a tour guide for his services for a couple of days at $250 a day. Our first day, he took us to one of the most sacred places in Mexico, the Teotihuacán pyramids. You learn things on a guided tour that give you the backdrop. It becomes an education when you hire a good tour guide. I felt like I was on a really rich vacation, but it was on a shoestring budget. It felt like we spent more than we did because the experience was so unique and tailored to us.