As the flexibility of remote work allows more and more people to work from wherever they want, many workers are taking advantage. From home offices to coffee shops, where you can set up your workspace has no limit. With that being said, more people are taking the newfound freedom even further. Introducing a new era of working life: bleisure.
What is bleisure?
Bleisure is a mix of both business and leisure, as coined by some travel industry experts. People are no longer feeling obligated to do work from home, they’re comfortable blending their vacations with their working life. It’s one aspect that has actually been credited with saving the airline industry during the pandemic. While many people canceled trips during the chaos, others booked them.
So, although numbers overall were down, bookings in business class were higher than ever anticipated during this time. And the profiles of those in business class changed, too. Traditionally, people sitting in business class were young people in tech industries. Now, anyone from creatives to people in corporate jobs with families makes up the area.
And although this concept ballooned during the pandemic, and the term is new, the concept itself isn’t. People have been going on vacations while working for years. But this could be the jumping-off point for an increase in its popularity, making people more comfortable changing their day-trips into weeklong affairs. Why not? Most companies will pay for the extra days as long as the overall flight costs don’t increase. But, you are still expected to work.
What about work-life balance?
Whatever your opinion on it, businesspeople argue it’s the results of a business that matter, not the logistics of how you get there. So whether you want to have more flexibility with work at a continuous pace, or a more rigid environment with guaranteed time off, the choice is up to you. Keeping things into consideration like exhaustion from travel and the quality of your mental health are good to keep in mind when considering bleisure.
So, trips had to be canceled, vacations weren’t necessary during such a critical health crisis. But within that problem, people created other reasons for taking that trip. It could be setting a trend for a future with bleisure.
