Side trips, as they used to be called, have always been seen as a perk of business travel, taking advantage of a work-based destination to explore the sights once business is over. Flights are already covered – although a Sunday return can be more expensive than a weekday for example – but paying for an additional hotel night is a good quid pro quo. These savvy travelers are making the most of a destination without the full cost of a separate trip. 

“We have noted that the use of ‘weekend’ promotional hotel rates has doubled year-on-year, indicating travelers are extending their stays beyond their work trip with deeply discounted inventory,” says Penny Watermeier, EVP customer success, North America for CTM. “Bleisure requests also spike when airlines offer double credits or points,” she notes.

“People who are new to business travel are often eager to explore, whether that’s an extra day in the city or side trips nearby,” says Watermeier. “On the other hand, seasoned travelers can be more selective. They may bring a partner or friend along, sometimes for just part of the trip, sometimes for the whole thing.”

The bottom line is that blended travel has made positive headway in the world of work, notes Greeley Koch, 490 Consulting managing director and Acquis Consulting advisor: “The psychological barrier of requesting time off has been eliminated and employees are more comfortable working from a different location.”  

However, that said, where does this trend leave the employer‘s duty of care if the employee has signed off from work and is enjoying leisure time in the same location? “The risk comes from blurred lines,” Koch warns. If companies fail to define clearly where their duty of care stops, they may end up carrying liabilities they never intended. he says.

“The issue is not the leisure days themselves, but the gray area in between. If an employee falls ill or has an accident during the leisure portion of a trip, is the company responsible? International travel creates another layer of risk, especially if an employee enters a country on a leisure visa but conducts business – the authorities can become concerned about visas and compliance. Without firm guardrails, what begins as a perk can quickly turn into a liability.”

Chloe Carver, corporate travel practice lead at Acquis, highlights other potential hurdles. “Blended travel also introduces financial and operational complexities, with split billing requirements, potential taxable benefits to employees, international taxes implications and other complications,” Carver says. “This can create an administrative burden for employees, managers and the audit teams, because correctly attributing expenses as personal versus business can be difficult within current systems.”

Insurance coverage is another consideration, points out Mike Boult, chief commercial officer for Altour. “It could also lapse once the official business portion ends, so it’s about educating employees about their own liabilities during their personal time.”

Kathy Bedell, SVP Americas and affiliate program at BCD, points to yet another risk factor. “Additionally, if an employee continues to work while traveling, cybersecurity becomes a concern, especially if they’re relying on unsecured networks or personal devices.”

There could be tax implications too. “Many organizations now set limits on how long staff can work from elsewhere, typically between 15 and 90 days, often as a safeguard against tax complications. Yet tax rules are far more complex than simple day counts,” says Carsten Østberg, managing director of Nomadic.

“Beyond tax, immigration considerations also come into play,” adds Østberg. ”Overstays, which will be easier for authorities to track under the EES rollout in Europe, can lead to fines, reputational damage or even imprisonment if employees remain in a country without the correct status or documentation.’

Transparency & Compliance

Despite these varied challenges, if managed correctly, blended travel offers many positives for both the employer and the workforce, like improving employee work/life balance, promoting mental wellbeing and strengthening talent retention. “Travelers often find that they return more energized and engaged when they’ve had the opportunity to recharge or connect with loved ones while away,” believes John Van den Heuvel, president, Corporate Traveler USA.

Corporate travel managers need to recognize how blended travel impacts their programs, particularly compliance and policy development. Understanding these factors can future proof their programs and mitigate employee and reputational risk, and financial liability.

“To address these risks, corporates are developing travel programs and policies that balance flexibility with compliance, ensuring they remain attractive employers while protecting both the organization and its staff,” says Nomadic’s Østberg.

No TMC or corporation can be unaware of these issues as the business travel marketplace is awash with statistics on the growth of blended travel – driven in part by hybrid working and the movement of digital nomads. Embracing the trend is the first step.

“Hybrid office policies have fundamentally changed the blended travel landscape by removing the barriers that previously discouraged extending business trips,” says Acquis’ Carver. She notes that employees no longer need to return to the office immediately after business trips and can even add days to their trip without needing to take time off. 

“Pre-pandemic, employees had to choose between rushing back to the office or using vacation days,” Carver says. “Today’s hybrid and remote work policies allow people to extend their trips and work remotely while enjoying the destination around their schedule.” 

And everyone, it seems, is enjoying blended travel. “There’s no real generation gap when it comes to bleisure travel,” says BCD’s Bedell. “Gen Z, Gen X, Millennials, and Baby Boomers all enjoy the cost-effective way to add leisure travel onto a business trip.” 

Research from Ipsos UK and American Express Global Business Travel this spring confirms that demand for blended travel is coming from all age groups. The poll of 1,000 US business travelers and 817 who live in the UK found almost two thirds (62 percent) of US and UK business travelers have extended work trips for leisure and half (52 percent) have incorporated work into leisure trips.

Nonetheless, the workforce of tomorrow will be filled with more and more 18- to 28-year-olds – the Gen Z brigade – will make up 30 percent of the global workforce by 2030. And this demographic generally are the employees traveling freely while working remotely. 

How Gen Z travels was the focus of a travelperk blog last year which revealed that they are not only big business travelers, with 53 percent planning to travel for business, but with over a third planning to extend a business trip in 2024 to enjoy leisure time before or after their work obligations.

A similar picture emerged from a CTM report, MIllenial and Gen Z Business Travel Trends 2025 and Beyond, which found that 42 percent of the 702 survey respondents “usually” or “always” add a leisure extension to their business trip.CTM’s Watermeier notes that blended travel is all about “making travel more fulfilling, professionally and personally.” 

Flexibility vs. Liability

Folding a leisure component into a corporate mission means gaining extra visibility and control over these ‘extracurricular’ trips. “Without proper tracking or documentation, meaningful data is lost, undermining compliance and program insight,” Bedell points out. “Without clear documentation of an organization’s policy, companies may find themselves navigating unclear legal responsibilities and increased risk exposure. Defining and documenting these boundaries in advance is essential to limit liability and manage expectations.”

The starting point is to create clear-cut policies which outline where the employer’s responsibility starts and ends, followed up with unambiguous communication to manage employee expectations.

“Visibility is key – but control doesn’t have to mean restriction,” Van den Heuvel points out. “The goal is to establish policies that are transparent, flexible and easy to follow, so both employer and employee understand the boundaries. Greater visibility ultimately enables companies to provide better support, whether the traveler is in meetings or taking a personal day.”

How companies are mitigating the risk of blended travel and choosing what to pay and not pay for is something that Will Tate, partner at GoldSpring Consulting, is familiar with through his client base. “Risk management seems to outweigh all other concerns,” he says. “When does the company risk begin and end, with the whole trip, only the business portions, etc.? Since there is a cost to assist on-trip, should the company cover this or not?” Tate asks.  

“Most seem to have adopted the ‘we’ll cover it end-to-end’ as it is just harder to start and stop.” Tate says that because usually less than 5 percent of trips include extra time, his clients have determined it’s worth the traveler satisfaction to pay for the risk coverage while on any portion of the trip.

“Our clients seem to note this as an additional perk that they are OK with – so they are OK paying the additional TMC booking fees, the additional risk management monitoring and to provide on-trip assistance if needed. Many attach this to their ‘traveler experience’ strategic driver of travel management (defined as, “Why do we manage travel?’).”

The Acquis client experience showcases different client strategies. “Some companies walk away from allowing it, while others embrace it as a perk to attract and retain talent,” Koch notes.

Altour’s Boult observes that, “smart companies are establishing formal bleisure policies, while others are more ‘tolerant’ and that’s normalizing the practice.” Either way, clear descriptions of who pays for what and when expenses should be reported. “Further, companies should educate employees on their personal liabilities in the leisure category, safety tips especially for female travelers, and what’s acceptable and not from an expense standpoint,” he adds.

Finally, Boult advises that more mature programs include a pre-trip approval for the bleisure component that clearly outlines the dates, destinations and travelers to create a clear paper trail for internal governance.

Among CTM’s clients, Watermeier says that demand, appetite and the allowance for blended travel in travel policies varies significantly by region, company and industry. The biggest hurdle for corporates, she cautions, is cleanly separating business and personal costs. “Miscellaneous charges order (MCO) or integrated expense platforms help, but unclear policies, outdated processes, or mismatched payment methods can still create friction between travelers and finance teams,” she warns.

“For customers with flexible travel policies that allow their travelers to book bleisure travel, travel managers often require customized approval workflows, particularly where multiple levels of authorization are needed based on factors like destination risk. The key is having booking tools that can support this complexity without adding friction,” Watermeier advises.

Navan already has a solution on its platform, explains Yuval Refua, chief product officer, payments and expense for Navan. The feature allows employees to select the dates for personal travel and pay for that portion of the trip with their own card, while the business expenses go to the company account. “This means accounting teams don’t have to spend time manually reconciling expenses or tracking down proof of purchase, such as invoices or receipts; everything is cleanly categorized up front, making reporting and reconciliation effortless,” Refua says.

Boult believes that managing blended travel will become easier once other booking platforms and reporting tools catch up so that companies can more easily separate business and leisure portions in a single trip. 

“That level of visibility will make compliance and expense management much smoother. Looking ahead, we expect bleisure will be standardized in most travel policies within the next two to three years, and companies that lean in now will gain an edge in both talent retention and traveler satisfaction.”

The message is clear: Travel programs can adapt to satisfy both traveler expectations and company goals. It’s fine for business trips to include personal time with family and partners, and with the right policies, the potential pitfalls of incorporating a leisure component into a corporate mission can be sidestepped by controlling these ‘extracurricular’ trips from the outset. Concerns around duty of care, reporting expenses, taxes, and employee/employer communications are all manageable, given the right strategies.