Within the corporate world, whether we are a fan or not, there is no escape from the remote conference call facilities. In line with the metaverse endeavours, digital and/or virtual connections are on the rise for just about anything.
Nevertheless, there is a witnessed duality in the new reality we live in. Revenge travel, creating new, meaningful experiences to shopping crazes are all newly found freedoms.
Business travel was heavily re-assessed by organizations a few years ago and heralded as an “unnecessary company expense” that can easily be replaced by a quick Zoom, Teams or Google call, resulting in a staggering 52% drop across the globe in 2020.
Though this enabled larger organizations to become more cost-efficient on the short-run, the mid-to long-term negatives started to arise due to a much more limited pool of company culture initiatives and tangible opportunities to foster prospecting or client retention overseas.
As per latest global business travel news in the MENA Region; the industry is set to grow with a staggering 6.1% in 2025; faster than the global average.
This growth is driven by infrastructure development, digital innovation, and a return to in-person trips, leading to a surge in bookings, particularly post-Ramadan.
However, Business Travel appears though to have morphed into a new form, called “BLEISURE” – a mixture of business and leisure travel. Remote working models enable mainly millennials to seek the ideal combo of work and life travel.
Thanks to this hybrid business travel option, the hospitality industries were also encouraged to implement major infrastructural changes. Whilst creating both a luxury relaxation experience, Bleisure travellers can now benefit from the latest technology innovations, healthy dining options to easily/24-7 accessible fitness facilities.
Here are some quick-win opportunities for organizations when it comes to Bleisure Travel:
- Face to face meetings matter; research shows that on average there can be 35% of improved performance whilst meeting clients, prospects face-to-face than via online email comms and/or meetings.
- Improve your company culture whilst nurturing Bleisure travel opportunities for enhanced talent recruitment, growth and retention. This will surely be welcomed by the Genz who crave much more a “work-life” balance & an opportunity to discover new horizons.
- Explore first-movers’ offerings across airlines, hospitality and/or affiliated industries that are heavily promoting Bleisure travel, hence reducing travel overheads vs. individual travel compensation and benefits.
- Review your current cloud services offerings and enhance remote working options even more safely for better and faster outputs through latest cloud computing products.
- Leverage latest marketing, media and communications opportunities to create impactful messaging campaigns to prospects across the entire travel journey, from offline to online, from search discovery to end-to-end travel experience.