More Long Islanders are embracing 'Bleisure' on their business trips

When Bert Lurch goes on a business trip to New Delhi in November, he plans first to spend a couple of days hanging out in Dubai.

"I hear some hotels give extreme discounts because they know people [on their way to New Delhi] like to stop in Dubai," said the 50-year-old Elmont resident. "I’ve heard a lot about Dubai, and I’d like to take in the culture. I plan to visit any tourist-related areas there."

Lurch, owner of the E Central Medical Management medical billing company in New Hyde Park, might even take someone with him.

"I may bring a friend who’s been a consultant with the company for about 15 years," Lurch said. "Because I’m so time-restricted, I think it’s important for me to blend in some leisure if I’m going on a business trip. I don’t have the opportunity to take two one-week vacations."

Lurch is among an increasing number of working people doing "bleisure" travel — the term is a fusion of the words "business" and "leisure." Typically they’re adding time at the beginning or end of a business trip for leisure activities, or they might travel to a destination for business, and then extend their stay to work remotely for perhaps weeks.

Others might add an unplanned bleisure element to their business trip. This type of travel is budget-friendly too, since the cost of getting the business person to the business destination is paid by the company or employer.

"The concept of bleisure travel has been around for years — probably since the very first business traveler decided to add a weekend stay after attending a conference or event, but it underwent a renaissance during the pandemic," explained Debbie Iannaci, vice president of communications and research for the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). "The combination of increased flexibility in work locations, work-from-home fatigue and rethinking priorities, has resulted in greater desire for blended travel and there is more opportunity to have that occur."

Bleisure favorites

An economic impact study GBTA published in June 2024 showed travelers taking planned bleisure trips comprise more than a third, or 33.8%, of all travel in the United States.

A 2022 study conducted by Expedia and Stratos Jets found 60% of business travel will turn into bleisure travel, and 71% of bleisure travel is domestic travel, while 29% is international travel. Other findings of that study were that 65% of these travelers travel alone and 35% travel with a company; and 57% of the trip is devoted to business and 43% to leisure.

The 2022 study added bleisure favorites are food and restaurants (56%), beaches (52%), natural sites (51%), monuments and historic sites (49%), museums, art, and culture (41%) and outdoor activities (39%).

Iannaci, who calls this "blended travel," says it can take on many forms, has a sustainability component, and many types of people like to do this.

"Some travelers see it as an opportunity to go solo and take a few days for themselves," Iannaci said. "Some bring along their partner or meet up with family or friends at their destination, and people who love to travel in general are especially leaning into blended travel," she said. "Also, people are seeking to combine trips in the name of sustainability, so they’re taking one flight for multi-purposes — for wellness or personal enjoyment or desires to see and enjoy another country or city."

The GBTA study found bleisure travelers stay for 4.4 days on average during these trips, and that men were more likely to travel for business overall. However, it showed that proportionately, when women took a business trip, they were more likely than men to combine it with leisure.

Adding days to trips

A GBTA 2023 Business Travel Index Outlook reported that 62% of business travelers were more frequently blending business and personal travel than they did in 2019, with 42% adding additional leisure days to their business trips and 79% staying at the same accommodation for business and vacation portions of their trip.

A GBTA Business Travel Industry Outlook poll, also from 2023, showed nearly half of corporate travel buyers — 45% — said their company’s employees had taken more bleisure trips than in 2022.

"To me, that’s how everybody’s doing their business travel these days," said Sheila Korte, of Babylon, who owns a travel agency with her husband, Chris. "They’re going someplace, and their family’s going to join — they’re saving expenses.

"Let’s say they’re going for a conference in Miami . . . they’re going to piggyback that with a cruise, or bring the family for a three- or four-day trip to Disney World," Korte said. "If you already have the company paying your airfare, you can have your family join you and that makes perfect sense. It’s savvy travel."

Kristen Pritchett, 40, is senior manager of public relations and events for TYR Sport Inc., known for swimwear worn by Olympic athletes. She travels for sporting events and product launches — and has morphed some trips into a family affair.

"In the past, I have been fortunate to have my family join me on a trip to the Bay Area in California, where I was working at a swim competition for the TYR Pro Swim Series," the Lindenhurst resident said. "I have family that live local to the Bay Area, and was able to extend my trip to visit with them. They also got to come watch some of the competition, which was exciting."

On the last day of the trip, Pritchett’s husband and son flew in.

"I was able to take my son to the Oakland Zoo with his cousins," Pritchett said.

Family matters

Family is always in the equation when Mark Cronin goes on a business trip. He co-owns John’s Crazy Socks, in Farmingdale, with his 28-year-old son, John, who has Down syndrome. The two go to conferences relating directly to their sock business, but some trips are for speaking engagements to encourage people with "differing abilities" like John.

"We take about 20 trips a year — for conference meetings and trade shows, and speaking events and advocacy work — and always at the end, there’s a leisure trip," explained Mark Cronin, 66, of Huntington Village. "We went to a Microsoft conference in Las Vegas for two-and-a-half days and extended our stay there and stayed another two days.

John went to the casinos, a lazy river [ride found in water parks], and caught some game shows. In Nashville, we went for business and then stayed another day. John went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Parthenon, and we checked out some restaurants."

He and his son are fortunate to have lots of travel opportunities and like to make the most of them, Mark Cronin said.

"We work hard and this is a way of enjoying ourselves. Now we’re angling to go certain places," Mark Cronin said.

Freeport resident Nicole Christensen, a patient advocate who owns Care Answered, in September 2023 went to a work conference in New Orleans that unexpectedly became a bleisure trip on which she made new friends.

"It’s a lovely city, it was a jam-packed conference, and there were a lot of great people I met," Christensen said. "How could we be in this beautiful city and not take advantage of it? We took the opportunity to experience the culture."

The food, Christensen said, was one of the best parts of the experience.

"We ate our way through New Orleans. My brother used to be a chef there, so he gave me some tips on where to go," Christensen said. "We felt we got even more from the conference by having some leisure time. All that information can be draining."

30 business trips

On one of Lurch’s past business trips, he shared leisure time with a longtime friend — Adam P. Schwam, of Lynbrook, president of the Sandwire Corp. information technology firm. In 2023 alone, Schwam took nearly 30 business trips.

Schwam has been working leisure into his business trips since "around the late '90s or early 2000s" when he had a job with the Small Business Administration, he said.

"They would send me around the world — technology was new then — and I got a gig out of L.A.," said Schwam, 53. He took his wife, Marisa; and daughters, Allie, 22, and Ava, 19, with him. "We visited family there, and my daughters got to go to films and different events and experience Hollywood behind the scenes."

For a 2023 trip to Ireland for a conference involving one of his biggest vendors, Kaseya, he brought Allie along, Schwam said.

"She came to everything with me, and she got to see what’s it’s like [business]," Schwam said. "At the event also was the CEO’s executive assistant who brought her daughter, and we all hung out in England for a few days," with the sightseeing including London Bridge and London Eye Ferris wheel.

Evan Bloom, 51, of Long Beach, said his kids grew up going on work trips with him, and that’s reminiscent of his own childhood. The father of two owns a Sir Speedy print, sign and marketing franchise in Bethpage, and said he was first exposed to the business world through working for his grandfather’s window treatment and interior design company in Bellmore.

Bloom’s son, Jaden, 20, said one of the best business trips with his dad was to Florida. It made him want to go to college there. He’s entering his junior year at the University of Florida where he’s majoring in mechanical engineering.

One of the favorite bleisure trips for both Lurch and Schwam started with a business conference in Miami.

"I had made the trip for a visit with a software vendor I deal with to understand the operations and meet the people behind the software — and Kaseya and Adam were there as well," Lurch recalled. "I’m a huge Knicks fan, and because of Adam’s connection to Kaseya, we were able to see the Miami Heat play in the Kaseya Center" — from floor seats.