Travel Advisor Innovation Report: Bleisure Trend a Mixed Blessing for Agents

Perhaps one of the biggest travel trends in recent years has been the blurring between business and leisure travel. Squeezed for time, many corporate travelers view the business trip as a working vacation, and a chance for family time on the road.

It's a trend very much at odds with today's segmented agency world, where most advisors are either leisure or corporate specialists. Addressing the very different requirements of both types of travel is no easy task. However, it's a crucial one as the bleisure trend means increased sales opportunities — not just headaches — for agents.

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— Maria Lenhart, Travel Advisor Editor

Featured Stories

Agencies Find Opportunity When Vacations Are Tacked Onto Business Travel: Conventional wisdom says a good travel agent can arrange leisure travel or corporate travel, but not both. Even if it were true, there’s nothing to prevent the agency from selling both leisure and business travel — except believing conventional wisdom.

Travel Advisors Warn U.S. Clients to Get Ready for Real ID Deadline: It may seem early to be worrying about the October 2020 deadline for so-called Real IDs for U.S. domestic travel, including U.S. territories, but planning ahead could reduce headaches at the airport or motor vehicle agencies.

Back to the future

Amtrak Sleeper Car Attendant Brings Old-Fashioned Hospitality to the Rails: Business travelers and commuters may be Amtrak’s bread and butter, but many leisure travelers have decades of warm feelings for its sleeper cars, and the old-fashioned hospitality they afford.

Returning to Supersonic: One Company’s Plan to Go Back to the Future: Competition is heating up for supersonic travel and Aerion has established an interesting team to speed up high-end business travel. If it works, the glamour of high-speed crossings will finally return, and the world will open up a bit more.

Global Distribution Doings

Travelport Is Being Taken Private in $4.4 Billion Deal: What will this deal mean for travel agents connected to the Travelport global distribution system? That's unclear, but for now it's the proverbial business as usual.

Lufthansa Ratchets Up Pressure on Sabre Over Distribution: Business would not be normal if there were no dispute between an airline and a global distribution system. Behind all the technology skirmishes, the bottom line is Lufthansa is trying to incentivize agents to bypass Sabre for the best flight content.

Hotels Vs. Vacation Rentals

Expedia to Hoteliers: Vacation Rentals Won’t Steal Your Business: Expedia officials can try to assure hoteliers that the rise of alternative accommodations is no big deal for their businesses. But you can be certain that figuring out how to manage this changing dynamic is of paramount concern for all parties involved.

Tourism

Europeans Traveled Abroad More in 2018 But the Pace Slowed: Europeans did more outbound international travel this year than last year. The pace of growth was not as torrid as in the past, however. Experts forecast a similar modest growth rate for 2019.

Skift Travel Advisor Editor Maria Lenhart [[email protected]] curates the Skift Travel Advisor Innovation Report. Skift emails the newsletter every Tuesday. Have a story idea? Or a juicy news tip? Want to share a memo? Send her an email.