Blended travel as the big boost for all segments in 2025
Bleisure has been a buzzword since well before the pandemic, but when that event catalyzed the adoption and acceptance of remote and hybrid work, the notion of blending traditionally disparate travel segments has taken on a whole new, and lucrative, meaning. Entering 2025, though, the concept of combining business and leisure – hence the “bleisure” portmanteau – no longer really encompasses all the different travel behaviors and sources of revenue hotels can activate.
The newer, but more ambiguous, umbrella term of “blended travel” can not only imply any combination of corporate, group, or leisure, but it doesn’t presuppose business first, leisure second. Hence, this term better accounts for emerging microsegments like digital nomadism and nomad executives, and how guest context can change over time or across different properties within a brand.
In a word, blended travel is adaptable. And that is why it should be a critical part of every hotel’s commercial strategy for the year ahead. With some statistics pointing to a flatlining of leisure travel, continued growth across all hotel categories for this segment is questionable given that we’re now fully over the post-pandemic revenge-travel surge. Instead, there’s great potential in ramping up a hotel’s experiential corporate and meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) revenues, then looking to squeeze out more juice from these contracts by enabling stay extensions or more ancillary spend (total revenue or TRevPAR increases).
What to know
Within this banner term of blended travel, here are five guest behaviors to consider:
1. SHOULDER NIGHT TRAVEL
This term is the most obvious one and is quintessentially bleisure (although it need not be business-first); a guest comes in as part of a group block or corporate rate then decides to extend a night on either end to get settled or tour the environs.
2. PLUS-ONE TRAVEL
This is most likely where a couple travels together; one attends meetings while the other works remotely or uses the facilities (with newer technology features allowing hotels to parse the profile data to measure revenue per guest or RevPAG).
3. EXTENDED STAY
Revenue managers must first build a rate plan that has price breaks for encouraging stays longer than a week, but there also needs to be certain hotel features in place like kitchenettes, grab-and-go food outlets, good gyms, laundry service, and others.
4. PROJECT SPRINT
A newer term, this occurs when remote teams regroup in person to more rapidly and intensively complete a different task, thereby necessitating different types of collaborative spaces, places to recharge or reflect, and, of course, excellent F&B.
5. LEISURE-FIRST REMOTE
Harkening back to the mention of microsegments, this would be the anti-bleisure, with a guest choosing your hotel first as an entertaining weekend, a family vacation, or a wellness destination, and then tacking on a midweek night or two to take meetings in the area or use the business center for remote work purposes.
WHY BLENDED TRAVEL NOW?
The notion of tacking on a leisure night to a group room block or preferential corporate rate has existed for many decades now, only it wasn’t economical to pursue at scale because most of these reservations had to be completed manually – both from the customer’s perspective via an email thread or phone call as well as from the hotel team’s side to process the request. Moreover, promoting these shoulder nights was difficult because event planners typically weren’t properly incentivized to repeatedly communicate the preferential rate within their company or group.
So, why now? Well, the pandemic catalyzed both the normalization of work from anywhere, as well as a rapid redevelopment of the technology ecosystems that can automate these sorts of complex reservations. Even as many corporations are now mandating a return-to-the-office policy to control for productivity, boost employee loyalty, and heighten collaboration, hybrid work setups – as well as fully remote companies – will remain a core part of our daily lives. This combination drives up demand for blended travel stays while also giving that demand a more frictionless onramp to be converted into revenue.
But it doesn’t stop there. With the cultural acceptance of hybrid and remote work, companies have realized they still need teams to periodically regroup together in person, both for collaboration and endearing them to the company. If an employee is purely remote with no meetups, they’ll have Zoom open on one screen for videoconferencing with the rest of the team, and their CV will be open on their second monitor – like a mercenary, always at the ready to swap in a better offer from another company recruiting a remote workforce.
Teams need to meet. And there’s no better place for that than hosting an event at a great hotel while also paying for the company’s employees to explore the world. In this new age of hybrid work, MICE and corporate travel have become a leading, nonsalary inducement for talent retention.
AMENITIZATION OR COMMODITIZATION
The major caveat or red flag within this megatrend is that blended travel heavily favors hotels with amenities, onsite programming, and, in a general sense, things to do in or around the hotel. The word we propose for this is “amenitization” to inscribe both the totality of what’s currently available as well as what you have in store for future renovations, events, or menu updates.
The full-service resort is the classic example, wherein guests are far less likely to have a long length of stay (LOS) if said property doesn’t have golf, recreational activities, area partners, a spa, or a strong culinary presentation. The opposite of amenitization is commoditization; every hotel room is interchangeable within a given market and thus the market sets the price, not the hotel. There will always be demand for heads-in-beds hotels within the budget, limited-service, or midscale categories, but it will be far harder to drive LOS for guests thinking within a blended travel context.
The onsite amenities simply have to be there to support growth here, not just for individuals looking to visit friends for an extra day after a conference, but also to convince event or corporate travel planners to select your hotel in the first place. Knowing that travel stipends will boost team retention or that experiential venues will make for a more memorable event, said planners are increasingly opting for hotels that check all the service and amenity boxes.
These are hotels where planners can host a multi-day conference or social gathering without having to go through the hassle of organizing the logistics for an offsite within the itinerary. No one wants, or has the time, to arrange for additional shuttle buses and deal with third parties.
The word here is “dynamic.” Think fluid indoor-outdoor spaces. Think creative teambuilding activities or add-ons, whether that’s a fireworks display at night or a wine tasting as part of a cocktail reception. Think great F&B, both for banqueting as well as having multiple restaurants capable of hosting private dining so that no two events within the itinerary need to take place at the same location twice. We’ve seen hotels convert a secondary, casual dining outlet into a bowling alley that can facilitate buyouts. And yes, also think full spa buyouts or other wellness enhancements.
STAY ON YOUR TOES
To be dynamic and experiential, a hotel may have to hire a designer and undergo a property improvement plan, while also bringing on task managers to develop new programs for which guests with a blended travel mindset are looking. But remember this isn’t just about maximizing the chances of getting extra shoulder nights or more ancillaries; it’s also about winning the contract in the first place, which will often be at a higher total value given all the experiential add-ons.
Blended travel has huge promise for 2025, and yet the hospitality industry is as competitive as ever, with hotels all over the world waking up to the symbiotic relationship between experiential offerings, conversions, and total revenues. There’s an inherent risk of commoditization should you choose not to innovate and spend on amenitization. Or, as one incredibly shrewd hotel company CEO put it to us, “Sometimes you have to spend a little more to make a lot more.”
