Business travel within Asia is growing at twice the pace of the rest of the world, and looks set to overtake the top-spending Americas within the next 10 years. There is also a growing trend among corporate travellers to include local leisure activities as part of their working trips.
The rise of Bleisure – combining business and leisure activities into one travel experience – is accompanied by a concurrent growth in popularity for sharing services.
While most Corporate Travellers do not have to pay their business travel, they are just as cost conscious as their leisure travel counterparts, and are interested in getting suggestions that help them save money (34%).
The focus on cost has seen the sharing economy, specifically ride-sharing services like Uber and Grab and home-sharing services like Airbnb and Couch Surfing, being a large part of business travel, even more so than for leisure. The reasons for using sharing services are ease and convenience and better quality and service.
The rise of Bleisure means that business travel behaviours are becoming more aligned to leisure travel, including cost consciousness. Sharing economy providers benefit from this trend thanks to the competitive products, flexibility and convenience they are able to offer and deliver.