Workation Statistics 2026: 42% Plan Bleisure Trips

Workation and bleisure travel moved from niche to mainstream in 2026. According to Expedia Group's 2025 Traveler Value Index, 42% of consumers now plan a bleisure trip, up from 29% in 2023, and nearly 45% plan a flexcation where they work remotely during a leisure trip. Deloitte found two-thirds of corporate travelers extended a trip for leisure in 2023, and the global bleisure market reached an estimated $816 billion in 2025. This report compiles 12 sourced data points from Expedia Group, Deloitte, MBO Partners, American Express, Hotels.com, and market research firms. Whether you are a remote worker, a frequent business traveler, or an employer setting travel policy, these numbers show where blended work and travel is heading.

The line between a work trip and a vacation has blurred. Remote and hybrid work normalized logging on from anywhere, and travelers responded by stretching business trips into leisure and turning vacations into part-time work. The vocabulary multiplied alongside the behavior: bleisure (business plus leisure), workation (work plus vacation), and flexcation (a leisure trip with remote work built in).

This post covers the size of the workation and bleisure market, how many travelers blend work and leisure, generational differences, employer policy adoption, and what the data implies for 2026. Every number links to its source, drawn from travel industry surveys, consulting firm studies, and market research reports. Where a headline figure comes with a methodology caveat, both are reported.

TL;DR: 5 headline workation stats for 2026

42% of consumers plan a bleisure trip in 2025, up from 29% in 2023 (Expedia Group 2025 Traveler Value Index).
Two-thirds of corporate travelers extended a business trip for leisure in 2023, and one in seven did so three or more times (Deloitte 2024 Corporate Travel Study).
18.5 million Americans worked as digital nomads in 2025, about 12% of the US workforce (MBO Partners 2025 State of Independence).
85% of Gen Z and 88% of Millennials view work trips as a chance to upgrade their lifestyle (Hotels.com 2025 Business Trip Report).
The global bleisure travel market reached an estimated $816 billion in 2025 (Precedence Research, 2025).

1. 42% of travelers plan a bleisure trip, up from 29% in 2023

42% of consumers are planning a bleisure trip, meaning they intend to add a vacation to the start or end of a business trip. According to Expedia Group's 2025 Traveler Value Index, that figure rose sharply from 29% in the 2023 edition of the same study.

The increase tracks the spread of flexible work. As employers loosened where and when work happens, travelers stopped treating business trips as pure obligation and began building leisure around them. The 2025 study drew on 11,000 respondents across 11 key markets, conducted with Wakefield Research, making it one of the larger recurring datasets on the topic.

Travelers under 40 showed a stronger preference for blending work and leisure than older cohorts. For travelers managing days across multiple countries, this shift matters: stacking leisure onto a work trip can quietly push total time in a region past visa or tax thresholds, a pattern we cover in our remote work statistics report.

Source: Expedia Group - 2025 Traveler Value Index Highlights

2. Nearly 45% of travelers plan a flexcation with remote work built in

Nearly 45% of consumers plan a flexcation, defined by Expedia Group as a trip where you work remotely for some portion of an otherwise leisure trip. This is the inverse of bleisure: instead of adding vacation to a work trip, the flexcation adds work to a vacation.

The flexcation reflects a structural change in how remote-capable employees use time off. Because the work continues, a flexcation lets someone stay in a destination far longer than their paid vacation days alone would allow. The 2025 Traveler Value Index found this pattern strongest among travelers under 40, the same group driving bleisure adoption.

The two behaviors together show that blending is no longer a fringe practice. With 42% planning bleisure and 45% planning flexcations, a clear majority of surveyed travelers expect their next significant trip to mix work and personal time in some form. For employers, that has implications for expense policy, duty of care, and where employees are physically logging in.

Source: Expedia Group - 2025 Traveler Value Index Highlights

3. 60% of business trips now include a leisure component

60% of business travelers extend their trips for leisure purposes, according to research from Expedia Group cited by the Adecco Group. The figure marks how thoroughly bleisure has moved from exception to default behavior on corporate trips.

The motivations are concrete. In the same research, 56% of travelers said good food and restaurants would make them more likely to consider a bleisure extension, and 50% pointed to beaches, weather, nature, and sightseeing. Bleisure is not abstract flexibility; it is travelers choosing destinations partly for what they offer after the work is done.

The trend also reflects a tension in modern work. The Adecco Group cites Indeed data showing 61% of remote workers and 53% of on-site workers now find it harder to unplug during off-hours. When the boundary between work and rest is already porous, extending a trip for leisure becomes a natural response rather than a guilty indulgence.

Source: The Adecco Group - The Rise of Bleisure Travel

4. Two-thirds of corporate travelers extended a trip for leisure in 2023

Two-thirds of corporate travelers said they extended a business trip for leisure in 2023, according to Deloitte's 2024 Corporate Travel Study. One in seven, roughly 14%, said they did so three or more times that year.

Deloitte's finding carries weight because of its methodology and source quality. The study combined two US surveys: 104 corporate travel managers surveyed in May 2024 and 1,389 corporate travelers surveyed from late May to early June 2024. That makes it one of the more rigorous bleisure datasets, grounded in actual traveler behavior rather than aspirational intent.

The repeat behavior matters as much as the headline. Travelers who extend trips for leisure three or more times a year are not opportunistic dabblers; they have built blended travel into how they work. For these frequent blenders, total days abroad add up fast, and the compliance math behind multi-country stays gets complicated quickly.

Source: Deloitte - 2024 Corporate Travel Study

5. 18.5 million Americans worked as digital nomads in 2025

18.5 million American workers identified as digital nomads in 2025, a 2.2% increase over the prior year and roughly 12% of the US workforce, according to MBO Partners' 2025 State of Independence study. The population has shifted toward people with traditional jobs rather than independent workers.

The composition tells the story. MBO Partners found 11.2 million traditional job holders worked as nomads, up 10% from 2024, while 7.3 million independent workers did so, down 7%. Workation behavior is increasingly driven by employees with conventional employment who work remotely while traveling, not just freelancers.

Satisfaction runs high among this group. MBO Partners reported that 82% of digital nomads described themselves as highly satisfied with their work, and 81% said they were optimistic about the future of their careers. The lifestyle has consolidated into a durable category, which we explore further in our digital nomad statistics report.

Source: MBO Partners - 2025 State of Independence: Digital Nomads

6. 67% of business travelers have taken a bleisure trip

67% of business travelers say they have taken a bleisure trip, according to American Express data cited at a Global Business Travel Association event. A separate GBTA survey of 4,700 business travelers found 62% were blending business with leisure travel.

The two figures triangulate the same conclusion from different angles. Whether the question asks about lifetime bleisure experience (67%) or current blending behavior (62%), a clear majority of business travelers fall into the bleisure category. The practice has crossed from minority habit to majority norm.

American Express ties the shift directly to remote work. When employees can work from anywhere, the rationale for flying home immediately after a meeting weakens. The trip is already paid for and the traveler is already on location, so adding personal days carries low marginal cost. That economic logic helps explain why bleisure adoption keeps climbing across survey after survey.

Source: American Express - The Blurred Lines of Bleisure Travel

7. 87% of younger workers see business travel as career development

87% of Millennials and Gen Z workers see business travel as an opportunity for career growth and development, according to the 2024 American Express Business Travel Survey. In the same study, 80% agreed they try to carve out time on business trips to explore their destination.

The methodology is tight. American Express surveyed 1,012 full-time employees who had traveled by air at least twice in the prior 12 months, conducted June 7 to 14, 2024. The respondents are active business travelers, so the findings reflect people who actually take these trips rather than the general workforce.

The career framing reframes bleisure from indulgence to strategy. Younger workers do not see exploring a destination as cutting corners; they see the whole trip, work and exploration together, as an investment in their development and wellbeing. Employers who recognize this can use blended travel as a retention and recruitment tool rather than a policy headache.

Source: American Express - The Blurred Lines of Bleisure Travel

8. 85% of Gen Z view work trips as a lifestyle upgrade

85% of Gen Z and 88% of Millennials say work trips are a chance to upgrade their lifestyle, according to the Hotels.com 2025 Business Trip Report. The survey polled 2,000 US adults who travel for work, conducted in September 2025.

The lifestyle framing shows up in spending. Hotels.com found that 73% of Gen Z and 77% of Millennials have paid out of pocket to upgrade to a nicer hotel on a work trip, compared with 48% of older colleagues. Younger travelers treat the work trip as a personal experience worth investing in, not just a reimbursable expense.

The report also quantified appetite for extension. On average, travelers wanted to spend 3 to 4 extra days in a destination after work concluded, and 57% cited visiting a place they would not otherwise see as one of the biggest perks of business travel. The work trip has become a gateway to leisure rather than a barrier to it.

Source: Hotels.com - 2025 Business Trip Report

9. 77% of Millennials have paid to upgrade a work trip themselves

77% of Millennials and 73% of Gen Z have paid out of pocket to upgrade to a nicer hotel on a business trip, versus 48% of older colleagues, according to the Hotels.com 2025 Business Trip Report. The gap between generations is roughly 25 to 30 percentage points.

The behavior signals a shift in how younger workers value travel. Rather than minimizing trip cost and getting home fast, they spend their own money to improve the experience. The same report found that among younger travelers, 40% of Millennials had booked a red-eye flight specifically to gain more personal time at their destination.

This willingness to invest personally reshapes the employer relationship. When employees co-fund their own trip upgrades, blended travel stops being a perk the company grants and becomes a shared arrangement the employee actively shapes. The Hotels.com survey of 2,000 US working travelers shows the pattern is now mainstream among the under-45 workforce.

Source: Hotels.com - 2025 Business Trip Report

10. 55% of business travelers took at least two blended trips in 2024

55% of business travelers took at least two trips that blended business and leisure in 2024, according to a Navan and Skift report. More than half also reported exploring local areas during downtime on their trips.

The "at least two" framing is significant. It rules out one-off accidental bleisure and captures travelers for whom blending is a repeated, deliberate pattern. A majority of business travelers blending multiple trips per year confirms that bleisure is now a behavior baked into how people travel for work, not an occasional bonus.

The finding aligns with the Deloitte and Expedia data from other angles, lending confidence to the overall picture. Independent surveys from a travel management platform, a consulting firm, and a major online travel agency all point to the same conclusion: blended trips are the majority experience for business travelers heading into 2026.

Source: Navan - Bleisure Travel Statistics

11. The global bleisure travel market reached an estimated $816 billion in 2025

The global bleisure travel market was valued at an estimated $816.24 billion in 2025, according to Precedence Research, which projects it to reach roughly $4.06 trillion by 2035 at a compound annual growth rate of about 17.4%.

Market sizing estimates for bleisure vary widely between firms because definitions differ. Other research houses peg the 2025 market anywhere from roughly $470 billion to over $800 billion, depending on whether they count only the leisure portion of blended trips or the full trip value. The direction of travel is consistent across all of them: strong double-digit annual growth.

Precedence Research attributes the growth to the spread of remote and hybrid work, rising emphasis on work-life balance, and hospitality providers tailoring offerings to blended travelers. The US accounted for an estimated $205.69 billion of the 2025 total, the single largest national market. The size of the prize explains why hotels, airlines, and booking platforms now market directly to the workation traveler.

Source: Precedence Research - Bleisure Travel Market (2025)

12. The US bleisure market alone was worth an estimated $206 billion in 2025

The US bleisure travel market was valued at an estimated $205.69 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 17.7% through 2035, according to Precedence Research. That makes the US the largest single national market for blended travel.

The US figure illustrates how concentrated the trend is in high-remote-work economies. The country that led remote and hybrid work adoption also leads in monetizing the blended trips that flexible work enables. As the US workforce settled into stable hybrid patterns, the bleisure market grew alongside it.

The scale also reflects domestic travel dynamics. Many US bleisure trips stay within the country, where workers face no visa limits but still create state tax residency questions when they linger. For US travelers heading abroad, the compliance picture gets sharper, since added leisure days count toward foreign stay limits the same as work days do.

Source: Precedence Research - Bleisure Travel Market (2025)

What these numbers tell us

Taken together, the data shows that blending work and travel is no longer a trend to watch; it is the default behavior of the modern traveler. A majority of business travelers now extend trips for leisure, 42% of consumers actively plan bleisure, and nearly half plan flexcations. The surveys come from different organizations using different methods, yet they converge on the same conclusion.

For travelers, the practical implication is that days abroad accumulate faster than they used to. A work trip that grows by 3 to 4 leisure days, repeated several times a year, can quietly push someone past a 90-day Schengen limit or a 183-day tax residency threshold. The flexibility that makes workations attractive is exactly what makes day-counting harder, because the trips are no longer clean, discrete, and easy to log.

The trajectory points firmly upward. With market forecasts projecting double-digit annual growth through 2034 and younger workers treating blended travel as both a career investment and a lifestyle choice, the share of trips that mix work and leisure will keep rising. Remote-capable work is the engine, and it is not reversing.

Workation and bleisure travel have crossed from novelty to norm, and the compliance complexity of tracking days across blended, multi-country trips is rising just as fast as the trend itself.

How Nomad helps you navigate this landscape

For remote workers and frequent business travelers, the appeal of workations is real, but so is the hidden risk these numbers expose. When a work trip grows by a few leisure days, repeated several times a year, total time in a country adds up in ways that are easy to lose track of. The same flexibility that drives bleisure also makes manual day-counting unreliable.

Nomad (the visa compliance app for digital nomads) automates the part that gets harder as your trips blend together. It tracks your days across every country automatically, runs the Schengen 90/180 rule and 183-day tax residency calculations in the background, and alerts you 7, 3, and 1 day before you approach any stay limit. Passport details stay on your device for privacy. If you are unsure whether your remote work abroad is even permitted on a tourist entry, our tourist visa remote work guide covers the legal nuance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of business trips include leisure in 2026?

60% of business trips now include a leisure component, according to research from Expedia Group cited by the Adecco Group. Separately, the Expedia Group 2025 Traveler Value Index found 42% of consumers actively plan a bleisure trip, up from 29% in 2023, and Deloitte found two-thirds of corporate travelers extended a trip for leisure in 2023. Across multiple independent surveys, a clear majority of business travelers now blend work and leisure rather than keeping them separate.

How many people take workations or flexcations?

Nearly 45% of consumers plan a flexcation, a trip where they work remotely during an otherwise leisure trip, according to the Expedia Group 2025 Traveler Value Index of 11,000 respondents across 11 markets. The same study found 42% plan a bleisure trip. Among the broader remote workforce, MBO Partners reported 18.5 million Americans worked as digital nomads in 2025, roughly 12% of the US workforce, many of whom work while traveling for extended periods.

How big is the bleisure travel market?

The global bleisure travel market was valued at an estimated $816 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at roughly 17% per year, according to Precedence Research. The US alone accounted for an estimated $206 billion of that total. Market sizing varies between research firms because definitions differ, with some estimates ranging from $470 billion upward, but all major forecasts agree on strong double-digit annual growth driven by remote and hybrid work.

Do younger workers take more workations than older workers?

Yes, generational differences are stark. The Hotels.com 2025 Business Trip Report found 85% of Gen Z and 88% of Millennials view work trips as a chance to upgrade their lifestyle, and 73% to 77% have paid out of pocket to upgrade a work trip, versus 48% of older colleagues. American Express found 87% of Millennials and Gen Z see business travel as a career development opportunity. Travelers under 40 consistently lead bleisure and flexcation adoption.

Where do these workation statistics come from?

The statistics in this report come from the Expedia Group 2025 Traveler Value Index (11,000 respondents across 11 markets), Deloitte's 2024 Corporate Travel Study (1,389 travelers plus 104 travel managers), MBO Partners' 2025 State of Independence, the Hotels.com 2025 Business Trip Report (2,000 US working travelers), the 2024 American Express Business Travel Survey (1,012 travelers), Navan and Skift, and market sizing from Precedence Research. Each figure links to its original source.

About Nomad

Nomad is the visa compliance app for digital nomads. Built by nomads for nomads, it tracks your days across every country automatically, alerts you before overstays, and keeps passport details on your device for privacy. The in-app AI assistant answers visa questions in plain English. Available on iOS.

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Important: This content is informational and does not constitute legal, tax, or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax regulations, and entry requirements change frequently and vary by individual circumstances. Always verify current requirements with official government sources or a qualified professional before making travel decisions. Nomad tracks your days and surfaces compliance information, but final responsibility for compliance rests with the traveler.