Once considered a quirky perk, bleisure—the blend of business and leisure—has become one of the fastest-growing travel segments worldwide.
The shift makes sense. Business travel is rebounding after the pandemic, yet today’s employees aren’t rushing home the second their meetings end. They’re extending trips for a long weekend, bringing family along, or finding ways to turn a work trip into a mini-vacation. Flexible work policies and hybrid schedules have only accelerated the trend.
For airlines, this isn’t just a feel-good shift in traveler behavior. Bleisure represents a significant opportunity to increase revenue, drive ancillary sales, and strengthen loyalty. By adapting to the expectations of bleisure travelers, airlines can move from being a seat-seller to becoming the central hub of the entire trip.
Bleisure travel refers to any trip where business and leisure are combined. The most common example is a traveler who stays a few extra days after a conference or meeting to enjoy the destination. But it can also include:
Bringing a partner or family member along on a work trip.
Extending travel to explore nearby cities.
Mixing remote workdays with vacation time.
Imagine a consultant flying to Boston for a Wednesday–Thursday client meeting. Instead of flying home on Friday, she stays through the weekend to enjoy Cape Cod. Or a manager headed to London for a board meeting who decides to tack on a few extra days to explore before heading home.
The key takeaway: bleisure blurs the once-clear line between corporate and personal travel. And it’s a blur that shows no signs of fading.
This isn’t just a buzzword—it’s backed by hard numbers and shifting behaviors that are already transforming the marketplace. What once felt like an optional add-on for a few frequent travelers has become a mainstream expectation. Business and leisure are no longer two separate categories of demand; they’re blending into a new travel reality that airlines must understand if they want to stay competitive.
Two-thirds of business travelers are mixing in leisure. Deliotte reports that 66% of corporate travelers extended a business trip for leisure in 2023.
Mixed trips are becoming the norm. Navan found that 54% of business travelers took at least two blended business-plus-leisure trips in 2024.
Younger generations lead the way. About 34% of Gen Z and Millennial business travelers extended trips for leisure in 2024.
Market growth is massive. Fortune Business Insights says the global bleisure travel market is projected to grow from $762.01 billion in 2025 to $1,713.69 billion by 2032.
Cities are already seeing the impact. Brisbane logged 5.8 million visitor nights in 2024, powered in part by bleisure-driven business travel.
The trend is not a fad; it’s an economic force reshaping airline strategy. It influences everything from network planning and fare families to loyalty program design and ancillary packaging. How people fly, how they shop, and what they expect from their airline partners is changing—and those changes will only accelerate as bleisure becomes a defining feature of modern travel.
For airlines, bleisure trips look and behave differently from traditional corporate travel. Consider the following shifts:
Corporate travelers still want the classic perks—priority boarding, lounges, seat upgrades—but they increasingly expect those benefits to extend into personal use. If their loyalty status applies seamlessly to the leisure part of their trip, it reinforces the relationship with the airline.
Members no longer want points that can only buy flights or upgrades. They want to use miles for hotels, cars, and experiences. Expanding the redemption catalog turns a “business perk” into a lifestyle benefit, strengthening everyday engagement.
Bleisure travelers are prime customers for extras like Wi-Fi (to stay connected during leisure days), lounge access (when family tags along), or premium cabin upgrades on the way home. Add in dynamic packaging—flights + hotels + activities—and airlines suddenly capture far more of the traveler wallet.
Traditionally, the seat was the product. With bleisure, the seat is just the start. Airlines that package the entire journey can own the trip instead of losing share to external booking engines hotels.
Airlines already know how to optimize revenue through fare classes, booking curves, and ancillaries. But bleisure introduces new behaviors—like Friday/Monday return spikes, longer average stays, and blended payment types (corporate + personal). That requires a fresh layer of strategy across revenue management and operations:
Fare Families & Cabin Mix. Bleisure travelers are more likely to pay for comfort on the personal portion of their trip—especially on Friday evening or Monday morning flights. Creating flexible fare families or offering weekend upsell incentives can capture incremental revenue without diluting corporate contracts.
RBD Steering. Yield teams can use revenue booking designators (RBDs) to protect high-yield business inventory during peak weekdays, while opening more competitive or bundled offers on shoulder days. This lets airlines serve both corporate and bleisure travelers without cannibalizing one side of demand.
NDC Retailing. With New Distribution Capability (NDC), airlines can surface personalized “bleisure bundles” that include flights, Wi-Fi, hotel nights, or lounge passes. Packaging through NDC makes these offers accessible in both corporate booking tools and direct channels, ensuring the bleisure traveler sees—and books—them.
Duty of Care Compliance. Many corporate policies now allow personal trip extensions, but compliance matters. Airlines that clearly communicate which segments are covered under the corporate contract versus personal spend can reduce HR friction and build trust with corporate buyers.
Airlines that want to lead in this space should consider a structured playbook. Each of these moves aligns with how bleisure travelers actually behave—and each creates measurable revenue or loyalty impact.
Dynamic Packaging in the Booking Flow
Bleisure travelers want simplicity. If they can add a hotel, rental car, or even a city tour in the same flow as their flight, they’re less likely to click over to an OTA. This not only improves convenience but also lifts attachment rates and average order value—turning a one-way ticket into a multi-day experience.
Extend Business Loyalty Into Leisure Rewards
Status and points matter most when they’re flexible. Allowing travelers to roll over corporate benefits or redeem miles for personal stays keeps your brand top of mind, even outside work trips. This cross-pollination is what transforms business travel loyalty into all-around loyalty.
Personalized Weekend Extensions
Most bleisure add-ons happen around Fridays and Mondays. Airlines that recognize this pattern and proactively suggest return shifts, bundled lounge access, or curated weekend itineraries can drive higher ancillary sales. Personalization here isn’t a “nice-to-have”—it’s a trigger for conversion.
Exclusive Partner Perks
OTAs can offer packages too, but airlines can differentiate by negotiating extras customers can’t get elsewhere: late checkout at a partner hotel, credits for on-property dining, or access to local cultural events. These perks make your direct channel the obvious choice for bleisure bookings.
Bleisure-Friendly Fare Rules
Nothing kills an extended trip faster than restrictive change fees. Offering simpler, low-friction fare rules on blended itineraries removes a key barrier and encourages travelers to commit to adding those personal days. Flexibility not only drives adoption but also increases goodwill and long-term loyalty.
Bermuda may be known for pink beaches and clear waters, but as Greg Ramey, Managing Director of BermudAir Holidays, explained on the Travel Buddy podcast, it’s also one of the world’s busiest centers for global finance and insurance. In fact, many Fortune 500 companies maintain a presence on the island, creating a steady flow of executives flying in and out for board meetings and corporate business.
That constant business traffic positions BermudAir as more than just a leisure carrier. The airline connects Bermuda with major hubs like Boston, New York, and Toronto, serving both the corporate crowd and vacationers. For airlines, this is a textbook example of where bleisure demand emerges organically: the same travelers arriving for high-stakes meetings may extend their trips to enjoy Bermuda’s hospitality, food, and world-class diving.
That proximity to both the business community and the leisure ecosystem underscores why bleisure isn’t a niche. It’s a reality airlines like BermudAir are living daily: serving a dual audience that expects both efficiency for work and memorable experiences for play.
Bleisure is not a passing phase—it’s a fundamental shift in how people travel for work and play. With more than half of business travelers already blending trips, airlines that adapt their strategies now will secure stronger loyalty and incremental revenue.
The opportunity is clear:
Package the full journey, not just a flight.
Extend loyalty benefits across business and leisure.
Personalize offers to align with new traveler behaviors.
At Switchfly, we help airlines do exactly that. Our white-label platform powers dynamic packaging, personalized rewards, and seamless booking flows—giving airlines the tools to capture bleisure demand while strengthening loyalty and revenue.
Want to see how airlines can create new revenue streams with dynamic packaging? Download our infographic today.