Everyone is starting to take 'bleisure' trips

It’s the mullet of travel: business in the front, party in the back.

“Bleisure” trips, or ones that combine business and leisure, are rising fast as a common form of travel worldwide, according to a new report from Bridgestreet Global Hospitality published by Skift.

The survey, which interviewed 640 respondents, found that 60% said they were more likely now to take bleisure trips today than they were five years ago.

About the same percentage said they had taken such trips, with 30% saying they’d added as many as two vacation days to their trips. Those who didn’t said they would have if they’d had more time.

Bleisure doesn’t seem to involve torrid George Clooney-Vera Farmiga affairs. The three most popular bleisure activities are sightseeing, dining and arts/culture.

And 54% of bleisure trippers said they bring family members or significant others (though this latter category was not defined) with them. Thirty-nine percent do not bring a significant other or family member with them but would like to.

Here’s the breakdown for family bleisure travel desire by country:

The most mysterious finding, given the trend’s recency: About 1 in 7 companies already have policies covering bleisure or bleisure or bleisure-like travel.

Finally, you’ll never guess which demographic takes the most bleisure trips.

“Close attention should be paid to the fast-growing 25-34 age group – the Millennials,” the reports authors say. “More dominant in this study than the 35-44 age range, this is a generation that are natural inhabitants of the digital, blurred lifestyle and are very open to bleisure travel.”

Businesses should be encouraging bleisure travel, the report concludes, with nearly four out of five respondees agreed that adding leisure days to business trips added value to work assignments.

Adds “cultural intelligence strategist” Miriam Rayman:

The bleisure generation was a particularly entrepreneurial type who would turn an evening out over drinks into a networking opportunity.

Rob covers business, economics and the environment for Fusion. He previously worked at Business Insider. He grew up in Chicago.