With more and more Indian professionals travelling on business purpose, a report has revealed that these trips are being extended for leisure, a trend which is slowly blurring the lines between business and leisure travel.
About 38 per cent of the total respondents took one to three business trips, out of which 29 per cent had extended at least one of their trips for personal travel, according to FCM ‘Bleisure Report, India’.
“Business travel has always been restricted and policy driven. While leisure travel, particularly outbound, has been niche with very low penetration,” FCM Travel Solutions (Indian subsidiary of FCTG, Australia) Managing Director Rakshit Desai said.
“However, the survey has unlocked a remarkable trend called Bleisure (business and leisure). It is interesting to note that the lines between corporate and leisure travel are increasingly blurring,” Desai said.
In the report, FCM Travel Solutions has included business travel bookings and expense reporting data from the survey undertaken among 800 corporates and small businesses in India.
FCM Travel Solutions is the Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group, Australia.
The report revealed that ‘Bleisure’ travel has recently become an unconventional employee perk in India with 65.5 per cent of the respondents saying their employer allowed them to add leisure travel onto business trips.
However, 27.6 per cent respondents said their companies do not permit them to combine personal travel with their business trips, which is the highest among all countries, it said.
The surveyed millennials (25 to 34 years old) had the highest appreciation for bleisure travel with 75 per cent considering it a major work perk, the report said.
They were also the most likely group to extend a business trip with colleagues (25 per cent), while 50 per cent of respondents in age group of 50, would use the opportunity to travel with a family member or partner, it said.
About 44 per cent of the respondents also favoured ‘bleisure holidays’ that enabled experience and exploration, the report said adding three most popular activities for them usually include sightseeing, dining and art and culture.
Besides, 25 per cent of the respondents were more likely to use the time to visit friends and family, it said.
Almost 9 per cent of the respondents added personal travel to their business with an objective of saving money and 3 per cent added personal trip to recover from the jet lag before commencing business meetings, the report added.
