Survey finds younger workers like being able to combine travel for work and off-time
It is common practice for some employees to combine business and pleasure trips — and maybe bring along family members afterward — by staying a few extra days as a vacation.
With the advent of COVID, and the pent-up demand for travel as pandemic restrictions subside, blended travel is becoming a hot ticket for workers.
Eighty per cent of respondents to a survey said they are more open to combining business and leisure, according to a report by Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, based on a survey of 1,281 adults in July in the U.S. and 3,000 IHG One Rewards members, conducted in February.
Plus, nearly one-third (31 per cent) believe that combining work travel and leisure would allow them to progress further in their career while another 39 per cent said that it would increase their happiness levels.
And 65 per cent of millennial and 59 per cent of gen-Z employees are more interested in organizations that offer blended travel opportunities.
“The ability to combine travel for work and travel for pleasure collectively is one of the core aspects that attracts them to employers,” says Ginger Taggart, vice-president of IHG global marketing and brand management in Atlanta.
“Having this flexibility as part of all corporations’ HR programs enables [them] to attract the best talent, to keep them engaged and help them grow [up] the corporate ladder.”
Similar results were found in a survey by Morning Consult, a decision intelligence firm in Washington, D.C.
About three in 10 of the 2,200 U.S. adults surveyed in August said they plan on taking a blended trip in the next year primarily driven by business, while three in 10 plan to take a blended trip with an even emphasis on business and leisure, and four in 10 say they’ll pick a blended trip that’s primarily leisure, says Lindsey Roeschke, travel and hospitality analyst at Morning Consult.
“Those groups are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, there are folks that fit into all of those categories but the behaviour is more common than one might expect, and certainly more common than what we saw pre-pandemic,” she says.
Since the pandemic, remote work has allowed people to be a little bit more flexible about when and where they’re travelling “and blending the business and leisure occasion,” says Roeschke
Work-life balance
As well, employees are beginning to care more about taking all of their allotted time off, according to Taggart.
“Post-pandemic, 54 per cent of respondents were disappointed if they didn’t take all their vacation days, versus 21 per cent pre-pandemic. That’s more than 30 basis points that’s growing.”
And 80 per cent of executives polled said both their personal and professional lives would suffer if they didn’t have more travel.
Work-life balance is at the pinnacle of employee needs, according to the Crowne survey.
“Seventy-two per cent said that it was the most important aspect to them; it overtook having a comfortable salary at 69 per cent, so we know this is what employees are looking for,” says Taggart.
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While the benefits for employees are perhaps obvious, offering more blended travel options can accrue back to the employer, she says.
“Whether it’s traveling for team-building and building that connection back, it really creates almost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the HR and travel landscape to say, ‘How do we pull together these two key trends that are both driving engagement from employees?’ and we really feel that blended travel is coming with an answer to that proposition.”
