Attracting the ‘Bleisure’ guest to your hotel
According to the professional bible that is Forbes, ‘Bleisure’ travelers are set to overtake business travelers this year and beyond – which provides a significant opportunity to hospitality venues and hotels across the globe. But what is a Bleisure traveler? It’s someone who’s travelling for both business and leisure; someone who’s visiting a place for work but tying in some vacation time too.
This is partly due to the rise of freelancers, the increase in self-employed – think digital and creative nomads who work flexibly and remotely. And so, the hospitality industry needs to consider exactly how they can capture the custom of these Bleisure guests – because, quite frankly, it’s an opportunity that’s too good to miss. Here’s what you can do to make the most of this new development…
Centre your offer around convenience
The thing about the Bleisure traveler is that they’re quite often time-pressed and visiting a destination primarily because of work – so they’re likely to be looking for local insider knowledge of the best places to visit.
If you’re able to build in enticing dining and socialising spaces into your hotel – ideal. Tailor your dining offer to your known audience and find a niche; something that sets you apart from competitors. If you can also build in an offer that’s locally relevant – that’s great too. Think about including local references throughout the design of public areas, and perhaps even reinforce this through your food, drink, and leisure offering through local procurement.
Similarly, can you also create a resource that points to all the best spots in your neighbourhood? Restaurants, cafes, museums, beauty spots, meeting places – anything that’s going to enrich your guest’s visit.
The same goes for leisure spaces. Not specific to just Bleisure travelers, guests nowadays are likely to want fitness studios and spaces to keep fit within. These often don’t need to be expensively equipped either – a spacious room with natural light and a good view can be the ideal place for guests to do some yoga or meditation during their stay.
Take a look at our recent work with the Hilton in Glasgow for inspiration on how to create flexible, multi-use spaces.
Consider working patterns across all spaces
This one’s the biggy: your spaces need to be intelligently designed to make working just as easy as socialising within your hotel. And this stands for both public spaces and guestrooms alike.
When it comes to furniture think about the Bleisure guests’ requirements. You might want to consider laptop heights, while seated, as well as minimising background noise with a mixture of public and private spaces within your social areas. The FF&E also has to be intelligently selected – you’re not thinking of office type furniture here. The key is to ensure that your selections work for multiple purposes; yes, it works for a meeting but it seamlessly transitions to casual dining too!
When it comes to the guestrooms, cater for comfort. The increase in home working means we’ve become experts in working from desks, sofas… even beds! Don’t feel the need to furnish with a dry, hardback seat and fixed desk looking into the wall – be creative. Round tables can be used for dining as easily as work, and sumptuous comfortable seating like a chaise longue can be as good for work as it is for relaxing. By giving your furniture selections multiple purposes like this, you free up space for other activities like working out – which, believe it or not, a lot of guests like to do from the comfort of their own room if they can; sometimes all it takes is a yoga mat and a screen with access to Youtube. On our recent project with the Hilton Glasgow we refurbished the hotel’s guestrooms, including the “five feet to fitness” concept, which is a room with enough extra space to include no less than eleven different fitness tools, including an exercise bike and weights.
Do all of the above whilst making sure that the WiFi is on point – and you’re already a step ahead of the game. Take a look at one of our latest projects in Edinburgh for more examples on furnishing for Bleisure guests.
Don’t neglect families
It’s easy to imagine Bleisure travelers as flying solo, or as a young couple – footloose and fancy free. But the demographics are changing and Bleisure travelers are more than happy to take the family away with them – it’s all about flexibility after all!
Think about this when it comes to your layouts. Guestrooms that cater for family groups, and social spaces that allow for little ones to join in are going to make life significantly easier for the weary Bleisure guest / parent!
Personalise!
Personalising your guest experience to Bleisure travelers will go a long way to encouraging repeat visits. This could be through smart-tech in your rooms (the ability to control heating and cooling systems), tailoring packages to those who want to stay for a proportion of midweek, and the weekend, or even simply promote the areas within your hotel that might be suitable for carrying out a bit of work – should they want to escape their room to take some calls. Any way that you can make life easier for your guests, given how busy Bleisure guests can be, is going to set you apart from competitors.
Do you want to discuss hotel design for different demographics of guest? Get in touch