Bleisure travel in the conference market: Opportunities for event organisers in Leipzig
Bleisure travel in the conference market: A research perspective
Bleisure travel is reshaping the conference market, as more and more business trips are being extended to include private stays. This shift is creating new requirements for event organisers and destinations alike. Professor Andreas Zimmer of IU International University outlines what this means in practice for events such as conferences.
Professor Zimmer, where does the term bleisure come from?
“Bleisure is a portmanteau of the English words business and leisure, and emerged in the early 2000s in the US market. The concept has become increasingly widespread within the international travel industry since the 2010s. In Germany, for just over a decade now, we have seen people combining business trips with private leisure travel or adding a holiday component. This trend has been driven by new ways of working, such as digital working, remote work and work–life integration.”
Extending a business trip to include a weekend in the destination city is nothing new: what is different about bleisure travel?
Professor Andreas Zimmer: “We are seeing a softening of the strict separation between professional life and leisure time. Today, it is much more widely accepted to integrate your family into everyday working life. I might attend a conference on my way to a holiday, or extend my stay for sightseeing in a city I have visited for work. These things used to be much more strictly separated. And the trend now has a name: bleisure.”
Pilot study on bleisure travel and workations in Germany
With the Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany, a new survey instrument has been developed to collect data on the business travel market. The data is intended to enable regular analysis and tracking of trends and developments in hybrid forms of travel. For providers, it can serve as a basis for future investment decisions.
How the pilot study for the Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany works
For the study, hotels and destinations across Germany were surveyed in 2025. The research team examined how hotels and accommodation providers are experiencing the trend towards new forms of travel. In 2026, the focus will shift to the demand side, with an emphasis on business travellers. The underlying hypothesis is that supply and demand are not yet aligned.
Leipzig’s role as a pilot region in the Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany
As a pilot region, Leipzig was already involved in a preliminary pilot study. Tourism businesses in Leipzig were surveyed to test and refine the research design. Alongside the 2025 surveys, a focus group discussion was held in Leipzig with the research team. The discussion covered practical industry experience and needs, Leipzig’s strengths as a destination, and concrete strategic options for bleisure travel. Opportunities and challenges associated with hybrid travel formats were analysed from the perspective of local stakeholders, with a view to generating practical input for Leipzig’s ongoing strategic development.
Professor Zimmer, where does Leipzig currently stand on topics like bleisure?
“In Leipzig, there is a high level of openness to this topic and excellent underlying conditions. Leipzig has always been a great city, and over the past 20 years there have been significant investments in its districts and in developments such as Leipzig’s New Lakeland region. Alongside its role as a trade fair and conference destination and a hub for business travel, Leipzig has also become popular with holidaymakers. That is precisely the key requirement for a bleisure destination. And Leipzig still has an appetite for more – it is not resting on its laurels. That is essential in order to tap into new market segments in the future.”
One major advantage for conference planners is the strong spirit of collaboration at Leipzig as a conference destination. Planners benefit from the close, partnership-based cooperation between conference hotels, venues and service providers within the Leipzig Convention Network. A central congress calendar provides an overview of events across the entire destination and supports planners in scheduling their events in Leipzig. Approaches like these are set to be further developed in the future.
Bleisure travel in practice: How Leipzig creates incentives for business travellers
As Professor of Tourism Management at IU International University, Dr Andreas Zimmer has been examining trends in business travel for many years. He explains how hotels and accommodation providers can adapt to new forms of business travel:
“It is about creating incentives: the business traveller comes to a city for professional reasons and is encouraged to stay longer or to return later as a leisure traveller. This can be achieved through targeted information about leisure activities in the city or through an attractive price offer for an additional night.”
For you as an event organiser, this means the decision to extend a stay for personal reasons ultimately lies with your participants. However, you can influence how attractive your conference destination is perceived to be and, through clear positioning, help ensure that business trips are more likely to be extended.
Leipzig Convention Bureau: Information for conference participants in Leipzig
The Leipzig Convention Bureau supports you throughout the entire process – from researching suitable venues to connecting you with the right service partners for delivering your conference. In light of the bleisure travel trend, you will also find bundled information for your participants on www.leipzig-convention.com: tips on cultural and leisure activities, as well as options for relaxing outdoors in Leipzig and the surrounding region. The site shows at a glance how people might choose to spend time after your conference, and why it is worth staying longer.
You can integrate this link directly into your conference website or your communications with participants. This allows you to provide your guests with useful inspiration for planning their stay, without having to create additional content yourself.
Bleisure travel in Leipzig: How the trend is changing conference planning
Bleisure travel is reshaping expectations around business trips. Alongside professional content and networking, the overall experience of the stay and opportunities for individual exploration at the destination are becoming increasingly important. For the conference market, this means that more and more business trips are being extended to include personal leisure time. As an event organiser, you should take this development into account when designing and communicating your conference.
On www.leipzig-convention.com, we show how conference planners and organisers can benefit from emerging forms of business travel – like bleisure travel – and how they can incorporate these trends into conference planning from the outset.
Strategic focus on business travel trends
Initial findings from the Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany study were presented in autumn 2025. The Leipzig Convention Bureau will also assist with the second phase of the study in 2026. In addition, Leipzig is involved in the Blend_it! initiative run by the German Travel Management Association (VDR) and the German Convention Bureau. The aim is to further develop new forms of work and travel through collaboration with companies, destinations and mobility providers. Bleisure travel is therefore not viewed in isolation, but as part of a broader structural shift in the business travel market.
For organisers, this means that bleisure travel is not a short-term trend, but a development you should take into account when planning successful conferences.
Many thanks to Professor Andreas Zimmer (IU International University) for the interview and his expert insights into bleisure travel. The Leipzig Convention Network has more up-to-date information on the Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany study.
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