Bleisure Travel and the MICE Industry

It’s safe to say that the worlds of both travel and work changed significantly after 2020. The results of this have been widespread, but one trend that we can trace back to the increased flexibility many people gained at work is the blend of business and leisure travel.

As discussed in our 2025 World Trends Report, there’s been an increased desire for “more interaction between destination and delegate” which has led to many professionals choosing to include leisure travel experiences in their itinerary when they have to travel for business. This rise of bleisure travel is a trend that has continued to gain momentum, and in 2025 is one that the MICE industry should take note of and harness to provide more value to attendees.

In this article, we discuss what bleisure travel is, the benefits of this type of experience, why it can be valuable for MICE business and how you can capitalise on the trend with your events.

Bleisure travel is the term used to describe a travel experience that blends a business trip with leisurely enjoyment and exploration of a destination. Typically, it involves an individual or a group extending a business trip so that they can enjoy a few days of holiday before or after they have to work, allowing them to see more of the place they are visiting. It can also involve bringing friends or family members to a destination that you have to visit for work and turning the trip into more of a holiday.

The rise of bleisure travel can be attributed to a combination of things, but one of the biggest is the increased freedom and flexibility that many employees were given in their jobs because of the necessary rise of remote working. Without the need to rush back to working full-time in the office after an important meeting or conference, employees can enjoy working from the destination that they’re visiting and fit in leisure activities and even time off whilst they’re there, whilst still being able to complete tasks and communicate with their team.

A trend report by IHG found that 42% of UK travellers extended their business trips to involve an element of leisure travel in 2023. With the bleisure travel market expected to grow by 500% by 2033, it’s clear that this desire to make the most of business trips is not going anywhere.

What does that mean? It means that there’s plenty of potential for the MICE industry to get involved in this trend.

From an individual perspective, there are many benefits to bleisure travel. Work trips become more enjoyable, you get the chance to explore more places, and you’re likely to feel more energised and positive about the meeting or event you’re attending for work as well.

But what about the benefits of the bleisure travel trend from a MICE business perspective? If you facilitate bleisure travel into your event experience, what impact can you expect to see?

When attendees aren’t just rushing to a meeting or event and then having to jet off again immediately after, they are much less likely to be stressed and distracted over the course of their business trip. Spending time before and/or after an event to just enjoy where they’re staying, even if they still have to work remotely, creates a much more relaxing experience that won’t be overshadowed by the worry of a quick turnaround or more time travelling than actually attending an event.

Having attendees who feel more positive and relaxed means that they’re more likely to be better engaged throughout the meeting or conference. There are countless benefits to better engagement, so bleisure travel really is a useful trend to make use of in your strategy for improving the attendee experience.

Bleisure travel tends to mean that attendees spend longer in the same destination where an event or meeting takes place. Unless you’re hosting your event somewhere really unpleasant, which is never advised, this tends to mean that attendees get to know the location better and feel more connected to it.

When attendees have a positive experience in a destination they’ll be more likely to come back. If your event happens regularly in the same place, the chance to return to a destination that they have previously enjoyed will be a factor that makes attendees more likely to return.

An overall benefit of bleisure travel is that it is better for the environment, for two reasons. The first is that it reduces the need for business travellers to choose the fastest and often the least sustainable option to get there and back from an event, as they can extend their trip into a holiday instead of rushing back to work. The second reason is that it makes the most of a trip that someone would have to have taken anyway for work and turns it into a holiday, removing the need for them to travel again for an equivalent holiday that they might have booked separately.

A real benefit of MICE events that encourage attendees to explore and engage with their location is that they can help you develop local partnerships, elevate your event’s status and establish a firm connection with a particular location. Facilitating bleisure experiences can help bring more tourist activity to a destination, which in turn can be used to establish partnerships with the tourist board and local businesses.

Having these connections can be really beneficial for your event, as not only can you make the most of recommendations and advice from local professionals, but you can use the bleisure experiences on offer as a way to attract more attendees. This in turn should lead to a greater local economic impact, meaning that everyone involved benefits from the activity.

Our first suggestion for using bleisure tourism as part of your event strategy is to promote the destination you’re hosting the event at along with the event itself. As we discussed earlier, this gives you another angle for promoting the event and also helps to attract bleisure travellers by highlighting what other attractions and experiences they can enjoy around the event.

Ideas for promoting your destination include creating blog content for your website talking about things to see and do in the area, highlighting local attractions in email newsletters, and even creating an area of your website that talks about the location, its history and its top attractions.

Another key thing to consider if you want to benefit from bleisure travel trends is the location of your event venue. Choosing a venue that is centrally located and therefore close to the best places to stay and things to do in the destination will make it more appealing to bleisure travellers, as it will be easier to smoothly transition between business and leisure activities.

A great way to market your event as an opportunity for bleisure trips is to recommend local businesses for your attendees to support as part of their holiday plans. Set up partnerships with accommodation providers, restaurants and activity operators and then signpost attendees to these businesses to encourage them to extend their trip and enjoy some of the local things to do and places to stay. You could even negotiate discounts for your attendees when they book with specific partners, encouraging them to stay for longer and support the local economy.

As well as encouraging your attendees to support local businesses directly, you can also support bleisure travel activity by helping to showcase local suppliers and cultural activities or events to give attendees a more well-rounded experience of the destination. By making the destination a key part of the event through the venue, catering, entertainment and even things like event merch, you’ll give attendees a better experience and hopefully inspire them to explore the destination independently as part of a bleisure experience.

Our final suggestion for incorporating the bleisure travel trend into your event is to share tried and tested suggestions for things to do in the areas with your attendees. Don’t just pick generic things to do and offer a brief overview of these activities; ask local employees or work with your partners to create insightful and genuinely valuable itinerary suggestions for things that delegates or attendees can do outside of meetings or event sessions.

You can also take this further by organising the trips or activities yourself and offering them as an additional experience for attendees. This will help to elevate your event experience further and really encourage bleisure travel, both improving the impact of your event experience and helping to support the destination as well.