Welcome, 2022.
If you are feeling like the much-anticipated turning of the page on your calendar would bring a fresh start, a whole new year filled with the promise of not just another 2020-pandemic-do-over has failed to deliver, you are not alone.
And yet here we are. Not quite back to business as usual, but thankfully not the shutdown that forced many businesses to reinvent how they did business the past two years. If your brain is feeling the fatigue of navigating the continuous switchbacks of protocols, masks-on/masks-off, and the novelty of Zoom and Teams meetings has worn off, again you are not alone.
With Ground Hog Day approaching, it may be time to mix things up a bit. Like the classic definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result), one part of the puzzle may be to step outside the box and do what we all do a little differently.
Enter the emerging new trend of Bleisure Travel – the blending of business and leisure travel. This witty name isn’t just a fun idea, it’s actually a great way to boost your productivity with a simple change of scenery and break from the sameness that has been plaguing a lot of us.
Increasingly, employers are becoming supportive of the idea of blending traditional business travel with a leisure component. Worldwide, more than one in three business travelers will add a leisure component to at least one of their business trips this year, says Jeanne Liu of the Global Business Travel Association, (The Rise of the Bleisure Traveller, BBC.com). According to Liu, many employers recognize that employee wellbeing, including the ability to travel for a combination of business and leisure relates to job satisfaction, which means people stay productive and stay longer in their jobs.
You may even find that the added bonus of trying a new destination restaurant or enjoying a mid-winter sunset from a new venue may be all the incentive you need to push through the daily grind. Many hotels, vacation rentals, and even airlines have mid-week rates that make the idea of a bleisure getaway even more affordable.
So, if the ocean is calling, think about booking a mid-week through weekend stay at a coastal location and imagine working on that deep-dive project or catching up on your in-box with the sounds of waves crashing just outside your door. That’s the kind of white noise with a view that certainly would make many of us much more productive.