BY SUSAN ROSE
What does your transportation company and ziplining have in common? Profit, if you play your cards right.
For years, many chauffeured transportation companies have focused primarily on one thing: getting passengers safely and professionally from point A to point B. But today’s corporate travelers increasingly want something more. They want experiences, convenience, and maximum value from every business trip or conference.
That’s where bleisure travel comes in.
Bleisure—the blending of business and leisure travel—has evolved into a major opportunity for transportation operators willing to think beyond the transfer. Companies that embrace this shift can increase trip value, strengthen client relationships (especially as a one-stop shop and time-saver), and position themselves as hospitality partners rather than simply transportation providers. If you’ve been in the business for decades, bleisure feels like a throwback to the days of retail, where the chauffeur was often asked to be a quasi-guide or you worked closely with your local destination management company.
This was the topic of a recent seminar at the CD/NLA Show in Las Vegas earlier this year called How to Capitalize on the Emerging Trend of Bleisure Travel. In the session moderated by Athena Grimm of BAC Transportation, bleisure was discussed from the angle of an operator (Joe Forgione of Auto Elite in Italy), corporate travel expert (Alys Krouse), and a travel and tourism company (Ty Morgan of Costa Rica Horizon, member of Horizon Stars).
“Bleisure—the blending of business and leisure travel—has evolved into a major opportunity for transportation operators willing to think beyond the transfer.”
What Is Bleisure and How It’s Growing
Bleisure is one of the fastest growing segments in corporate travel. We’re talking about adding a few extra days to a business trip for a mini-vacation, maximizing the time in between meetings so the traveler isn’t just stuck in the hotel room ordering room service and watching Netflix, or even tacking on a significant other. It’s estimated that 40% to 60% of travelers are now extending business trips or integrating leisure activities into them, according to Allied Market Research.
CD/NLA Show session speakers (L to R): Joe Forgione of Auto Elite, corporate travel expert Alys Krouse, and Ty Morgan of Horizon Stars of Costa Rica While it’s not exactly new—European business travelers especially have been doing this for decades—bleisure has seen a massive bump post-COVID, thanks to businesses being cognizant of work-life balance and being more flexible with their traveling employees. For corporate clients, bleisure is no longer viewed as a luxury perk. It is becoming part of employee retention and satisfaction strategies. Road warriors who spend significant time away from home are looking for ways to make travel more enjoyable and less stressful. In fact, the global bleisure market exceeded $315 billion in 2022 and is on track to surpass $730 billion by 2032, according to corporate expense management platform Navan. And the best part is it can be as simple as finding dinner spots for the traveler or as detailed as booking their entire itinerary that includes once-in-a-lifetime or off-the-beaten-path tours and stays after the business part of the trip has concluded. This is something you can’t afford to sleep on if you’re serious about tapping into a profitable niche.
“The key thing here is the client—often the corporate travel manager—wants reliability,” says Krouse, adding that travel departments are frequently staffed by only one or two overworked people who are tasked with managing the needs of sometimes hundreds or more travelers. “But number two, if you can take some of the workload off them, such as the dinner reservation, now all of a sudden you’re helping to curate a team event. They’re dealing with one person, one company, and you’re providing all those experiences and filling in the gaps for them—or even suggesting something they didn’t consider. That means that they do not have to coordinate all of this.”
For transportation companies, this creates a major opening. Operators already control one of the most important touchpoints in the travel journey, so the question then becomes what else you can provide around that experience. You’re not only selling an experience; you’re selling convenience.
Shifting Your Mindset to “Holistic Hospitality”
The biggest challenge for many operators is not logistics—it is mindset. Operators must stop viewing themselves solely as transportation providers and start thinking like hospitality providers. Transportation becomes the foundation, but everything else surrounding it becomes the differentiator. Of course, savvy operators have long partnered with local and regional businesses like restaurants, hotels, and other hotspots, but this is taking that one step further and becoming a seamless concierge-meets-travel service.
Krouse likes to call this “holistic hospitality”—one that complements transportation rather than being limited to it. Successful operators in the bleisure space focus heavily on relationship-building rather than simply processing reservations. They actively ask questions, identify gaps in a traveler’s itinerary, and look for opportunities to improve the overall trip far beyond the airport. Bleisure is about streamlining the business-to-pleasure transition.
That mindset shift extends to your team too as capturing bleisure business requires staff training and operational alignment. Reservationists, dispatchers, chauffeurs, and anyone else in a customer-service role all need to understand:
❱ What services the company can offer
❱ How to identify upsell opportunities
❱ How to make recommendations naturally
❱ How to communicate confidently about local experiences
“We want that corporate travel booker to be a hero, so we want to make their job as easy as possible,” says Forgione. “We can recommend these extra or tiered services, whatever the cost may be—because a lot of the times the budget isn’t necessarily the concern but what’s best for their boss. And so, you have to make the offering.”
“When I was talking to multiple corporations and their travel management leaders, they would have maybe three or four transportation vendors and only one asked for the additional business. And it was that one company that got it. So, just asking or making sure they’re aware of the service is a key first step,” says Krouse.
Leveraging Technology and CRM Systems
Bleisure opportunities often come from information operators already have. For example, Forgione noticed clusters of airport transfers but no related dinner service bookings, tours, or leisure activities attached. That observation when he was first getting started led to a simple follow-up system using spreadsheets and email tracking. Within 30 days, the company reported a 15% increase in sales from follow-ups alone—using customers they already had.
Modern CRM systems, where Morgan’s business shines, can take that process much further by helping operators:
❱ Tag clients by destination
❱ Track traveler preferences
❱ Automate follow-up communications
❱ Create marketing workflows
❱ Build curated destination packages
❱ Trigger upsell opportunities based on itinerary details
“As a digital native company, our idea is really to figure out how we can drive more sales through tech and identify these opportunities,” says Morgan. “Collecting data about our clients and grabbing profile details lets us know what they are interested in doing as well as what they’re not. Then it’s up to us to figure out how are we going to capitalize on those particular opportunities and build workflows to support that whole sales cycle.”
The key is consistency. Follow-up (or not following up, in this case) is often where companies leave money on the table.
Opportunities Operators May Miss
Many operators are already sitting on profitable opportunities without realizing it. Here are some suggestions from the panel discussion.
The Airport Pickup That Becomes a Mini City Tour: Instead of a standard airport transfer, operators offer a guided introductory “panoramic airport pickup” tour on the way to their destination. What might have been a 45-minute transfer becomes a two- or three-hour experience complete with sightseeing stops, coffee breaks, or local food recommendations. Not only is it more vehicle hours, but it creates a memorable first impression.
Forgione suggested this one for his Italy-bound passengers, but his concept can work almost anywhere. Every city has local culture, neighborhoods, landmarks, food, or hidden gems that visitors may never discover on their own. This can be plug-and-play with a standard loop of sites, but it can also be tailored to include the spots that aren’t in any tour book (which might even increase client satisfaction).
Dinner Service and Evening Transportation: Morgan and Forgione also discovered that many corporate groups were not booking evening transportation at all, despite clearly going out to dinner or events after meetings. By proactively offering these types of nightlife activities, operators can fill itinerary gaps clients may not even realize exist.
Meet-and-Greet Upgrades: In some international markets, travelers can be escorted from the aircraft through customs, baggage claim, and directly to their chauffeur. For executives and VIP travelers, the convenience and stress reduction can be worth significantly more than the transfer itself. These services appeal especially to executive assistants and travel managers whose primary concern is making their traveler’s experience seamless.
Curated Experiences and Commission Revenue: Operators can also create revenue through commissions and markups on experiences such as:
❱ Wine or food tours
❱ Ziplining or other high-octane activities
❱ Helicopter expeditions
❱ Boat/water excursions
❱ Guided walking tours
❱ Local-style cooking classes
According to the panel, many local providers of these add-on services are willing to pay commissions or wholesale rates in exchange for consistent referrals. As a bonus, these experiences often create additional transportation bookings tied to the activity itself.
How to Get Started
The good news is that entering the bleisure market does not require a massive overhaul, and most operators can begin with a few practical steps.
Start Small: You do not need dozens of tours or complex technology from day one. Focus first on services that naturally complement your existing bookings, such as:
❱ One or two curated experiences
❱ A simple airport upgrade
❱ Restaurant recommendations (often the easiest)
❱ Local sightseeing stops
❱ Evening transportation
Ask More Questions: Just as Krouse mentioned earlier, simply asking is the hurdle that could lead to a bigger sale. Does your company know:
❱ “Will your travelers have free time?”
❱ “Would they like restaurant recommendations?”
❱ “Are they extending their stay?”
❱ “Would they be interested in local experiences?”
Train Staff to Think Hospitality: Bleisure success depends heavily on frontline staff embracing the concept. Your team should understand things like local attractions, partnerships with other companies/venues, corporate traveler/manager pain points, upselling opportunities, and communication expectations. Most importantly, they must feel comfortable making recommendations while also understanding when it’s too much.
Build Systems for Follow-Up: Even using a basic spreadsheet can produce results if you create simple workflows for personalized follow-up communications.
Vet Partners Carefully: As you expand into experiences and activities, partner quality becomes critical—and your duty of care obligation still exists. Test experiences personally whenever possible. Considering sending staff members to the destination so they can experience it firsthand and are able to effectively sell (often partners will heavily discount or offer services for free to your team as long as you to promote them—you just have to ask). Understand the logistics, customer experience, liability considerations, and communication expectations before promoting a partner service. Strong partnerships can enhance your brand, but weak or even dangerous partnerships can absolutely damage it. Do your diligence, friends.
Protect Your Liability ... and Theirs: It’s a fact of life that bad things can happen, and even if you’re not directly responsible, the panel warned that many lawyers will go up the chain of any organization involved to find the deepest pockets (think: car manufacturers getting dragged into suits for faulty parts they didn’t produce). In that case, you’ll want to consider having the traveler and/or the corporation sign a waiver for activities outside of your direct control (e.g., traveler gets cut while on a tour or their property is stolen or damaged, etc.). On the corporate side, the employee might be covered by work or health insurance policy. Regardless, consult with your insurance company and attorney to ensure your company is protected legally and you’ve addressed any loopholes.
Bottom Line
The companies succeeding in bleisure are the ones willing to evolve. They recognize that transportation is no longer just about the ride itself. It is about reducing stress, improving experiences, solving problems, and creating memorable journeys for people who really crave them. With so much changing in the world of transportation, operators who continue viewing themselves solely as chauffeured transportation providers may find growth increasingly difficult. Those who embrace hospitality, relationship-building, and curated activities may discover entirely new profit centers hiding within the trips they already book every day. [CD0626]
