Bleisure is a rising trend in business travel: the working week can end with a husky safari or a world-class concert

Press release | Fri Apr 14 10:10:00 2023

Combining leisure travel with business trips has been a rapidly growing trend in recent years. At hotel chain Lapland Hotels’ destinations, “bleisure” travel was already gaining popularity before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the phenomena is constantly growing. At urban destinations, travellers can visit cultural attractions after their working week, while a business trip to Lapland can be ended with a snowshoe or husky safari. International business travellers are also starting to return to Finland.

After the long pandemic and period of remote work, many companies are yearning for more face-to-face meetings and conference travel is on the rise again. In Lapland Hotels, Finland’s largest private hotel chain, the bleisure trend of combining business and leisure trips is popular now that conference travel has recovered from the pandemic.

– “Bleisure allows employees to take longer holidays with their family, for example. At our destinations in Lapland, you can go on a husky safari or head to the slopes after work or a meeting. Urban destinations, in turn, provide cultural experiences, such as big concerts at the Nokia Arena in Tampere or the city’s other cultural offering,” says Leena Turunen, Area General Manager at Lapland Hotels.

Business travellers looking for a sense of community and well-being

In the hotel chain’s sales services, the sales of business and leisure trips are no longer separated, and people are increasingly booking overlapping trips in one package. More international business travellers are also expected in Finland, partly as a result of the recent NATO decision.

– “Already during the pandemic, many people travelled to Lapland to work remotely for several months or spent a week in a city hotel for a change of scenery, for instance. Nowadays, international business travellers also bring their families along,” says Tommy Sohlberg, Sales Team Manager from Corporate Sales.

When it comes to business and conference travel, the main focus is now on fostering a sense of community and team spirit, and companies want to invest in employee well-being. Quality is currently valued above all else in business travel.

– “If trips are made less frequently, people are also willing to pay more for quality. The same applies to business travel. We also believe that business travel will increase even more now that the world has opened up again,” Leena Turunen adds.

For company events, Lapland Hotels has conference and party facilities for 10–500 people both in Lapland and in cities. Authentic Northern flavours are a key part of our meeting packages and, in Lapland, meetings and company events can be combined with Lapland Safaris’ extensive event service offering.

For further information and interview requests, please contact:

Leena Turunen
Area General Manager
Helsinki-Oulu-Tampere-Kuopio
Lapland Hotels
+358 44 5450545
leena.turunen@laplandhotels.com

Tommy Sohlberg
Sales Team Manager
Lapland Hotels
+358 50 3883524
tommy.sohlberg@laplandhotels.com

Travel enterprise Lapland Hotels & Safaris offers Northern experiences for all senses. It consists of Finland’s largest private hotel chain, Lapland Hotels, the largest experience service company in the Nordic countries, Lapland Safaris Group Oy, and Lapland Ski Resorts. The group has approximately 1,700 employees in total.

Lapland Hotels has 19 hotels, more than 2,400 rooms and apartments as well as over 10,000 restaurant seats around Finland: in Ylläs, Levi, Saariselkä, Rovaniemi, Olos, Luosto, Kilpisjärvi, Pallas, Hetta, Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu and Kuopio.

Lapland Safaris offers unique outdoor activities in eight destinations in Lapland: Rovaniemi, Ylläs, Saariselkä, Levi, Luosto, Olos, Hetta and Kilpisjärvi.

Lapland Ski Resorts comprises five ski centres located in Ylläs, Luosto, Olos, Pallas and Rovaniemi. www.laplandhotels.com/en/, www.laplandsafaris.com/en/