MeetingMentor Magazine

December 2025

Gen Z Is All in on Bleisure

While they may not call it “bleisure,” the workforce’s youngest members are all over the trend of extending work trips into mini vacations.

Reveling in the chance to travel to new places and eat, drink and stay in style on the company dime has long been a prime business perk, but the youngest members in today’s work force are even more into it than their older colleagues. While they may not call it “bleisure,” Gen Z business travelers are more likely to bring along a friend or family member and tack on a few extra days of vacation time, according to Hotels.com’s Business Trip Report.

All in all, a full 85% of Gen Z — and even more Millennials, 88% — said they view business trips as opportunities to enhance their lifestyles by staying in nicer hotels, eating better meals, earning rewards, and generating cool visuals for social media posts, of course. In fact, 75% said they’d pay out of pocket for higher-end dining experiences and entertainment to generate better social sharing content. This could be a necessity for them, however, since they tend to post 3-5 times daily while on business trips, compared to just once a day or less for their baby boomer colleagues. In fact, Millennials are so into social posting that 47% say they wouldn’t travel for work if they couldn’t document it, compared to 34% of Gen Zers.

And they’re more willing than their older counterparts to pay for upgrades themselves to get higher-end options, according to the report. This means they’re twice as willing to cough up the extra cash or points to upgrade their flights, and 73% of Gen Z and 77% of Millennials said they have paid out of pocket to move to a more luxurious hotel guest room, something just 48% of their older colleagues said they have done. They are being strategic about it though. The report found that 58% of all business travelers said they make work travel choices based on maximizing their loyalty program rewards. While some likely use those points toward upgrades for their business travel, almost half said they have used those rewards for leisure travel.

In addition to flights and hotel, half of Gen Z respondents also said they would like to bring along a plus-one, and almost as many, 45%, said they’d extend a trip if it meant they could spend more quality time with coworkers. Even if they have to go it alone, without a plus-one or colleague, 54% said they’d take extra time post-meeting to explore the destination on their own.

As to the bleisure thing — Gen Z respondents on average said they’d like to tack on an extra three to four days post-meeting to further experience what 57% called one of the biggest perks of the job — getting to visit a new destination. They also are more likely to arrive early to get in more personal time in a destination — 40% said they had taken a redeye flight just to have that extra pre-meeting personal time.

Top work trip destinations also tend to vary by generation. Gen Zers and Millennials rank Tokyo, Paris and New York highest, while London is the top pick for Gen Xers and Boomers. Gen Z is 5 times more likely than older colleagues to hope work sends them to Seoul.

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About ConferenceDirect
ConferenceDirect is a global meetings solutions company offering site selection/contract negotiation, conference management, housing & registration services, mobile app technology and strategic meetings management solutions. It provides expertise to 4,400+ associations, corporations, and sporting authorities through our 400+ global associates. www.conferencedirect.com

About MeetingMentor
MeetingMentor, is a business journal for senior meeting planners that is distributed in print and digital editions to the clients, prospects, and associates of ConferenceDirect, which handles over 13,000 worldwide meetings, conventions, and incentives annually. www.meetingmentormag.com