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Work Hard, Play Harder — Three Steps to Capture & Manage Growing Bleisure Spend Scenarios

Bleisure — the blend of business and leisure travel — has moved from niche behavior to mainstream expectation. As work becomes more flexible and mobility more fluid, employees are increasingly extending business trips to include personal time. Some add weekends. Others bring family. Many simply book a few extra days to explore new cities on their own.

This shift is not anecdotal. According to recent surveys, 46% of corporate travel buyers are seeing a rise in bleisure bookings — a figure that continues to grow, especially among millennial and Gen Z travelers.

But while bleisure may enhance traveler satisfaction and well-being, it also introduces new complexities: who pays for what, how do we manage risk, and what’s the impact on sustainability reporting and tax compliance?

Companies that ignore bleisure risk exposure. But those who embrace it — with policy, platforms, and process — can turn it into a strategic advantage that supports retention, satisfaction, and smarter travel design.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Define Your Framework — What Counts, What’s Covered, What’s Tracked

The first mistake companies make with bleisure is ambiguity. Without clear policy, employees make assumptions, book outside approved channels, and leave compliance teams in the dark.

A modern bleisure policy should answer:

Can business trips be extended? If so, how many days?
Can personal travel be combined with company-paid flights?
Are travelers allowed to bring companions? How does that affect risk and duty of care?
What happens if a disruption (like a strike or illness) occurs during the leisure portion of the trip?

With HRS Connect, companies can bake these policy guidelines directly into the booking flow. That means:

Approved hotels visible for the business portion
Traveler-paid options for leisure stays clearly marked
Data segmentation between business and personal spend

This creates clarity — for employees and administrators alike — and keeps all bookings, regardless of purpose, inside the platform.

Step 2: Automate Expense & Risk Boundaries

Blurred lines between business and leisure also blur who’s liable — and what’s reimbursable.

With HRS Payment & Expense, companies can:

Issue virtual cards that expire at the end of the business stay, ensuring personal costs aren’t charged to corporate accounts
Integrate with ERP systems to track business-only expenses for tax and reporting purposes
Set location-based rules: e.g., if a personal stay takes place in a high-risk region, automated alerts can be triggered

This automated segmentation helps:

Finance: by simplifying reconciliation and cost attribution
Legal and Risk: by maintaining clear boundaries around duty of care
Travelers: by offering peace of mind and transparency

The result? A seamless experience that honors both freedom and compliance.

Step 3: Use Bleisure Data to Shape Travel Strategy

Bleisure can offer powerful insights into traveler behavior — if it’s captured and analyzed correctly.

For example:

Which cities generate the most bleisure extensions? Could this inform future preferred hotel selections or event locations?
Are bleisure travelers more compliant with booking channels, and more satisfied with their experience?
How does bleisure impact emissions? Could extending trips reduce flights, supporting ESG goals?

With HRS Copilot, companies can track bleisure-related trends across regions, roles, and functions — and use those insights to:

Adjust policy based on usage patterns
Improve hotel and destination sourcing decisions
Communicate value to HR, DEI, and ESG stakeholders

In this way, bleisure is no longer a fringe case. It becomes a meaningful input into a smarter, more human-centered travel strategy.

HRS Perspective: Making Room for the Realities of Modern Travel

At HRS, we know that work and life aren’t always neatly divided — and that travel reflects that complexity. Our solutions are designed to support the way people actually move:

Flexible enough to accommodate personal needs
Structured enough to protect compliance
Intelligent enough to learn and improve over time

HRS Connect, Payment & Expense, and Copilot offer the tools to capture, manage, and optimize bleisure — while enhancing satisfaction and lowering risk.

Companies that acknowledge the rise of bleisure — and manage it proactively — will see stronger adoption, happier travelers, and a more future-ready travel program overall.

This isn’t about letting go of control. It’s about creating systems where control is built into the freedom.

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