TOURISM
‘Bleisure’ Trips Are Back
More business people combining business trips to leisure trips By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
W
ork trips are fun again. Often called “bleisure” trips the portmanteau combines “business” and “leisure” — symbolic of the mixed nature of the getaway. Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham, owner of Women TIES, LLC in Syracuse, enjoys any chance she has to take a vacation while on a work trip. “I am always looking for opportunities to combine business and pleasure trips because it makes perfect sense if I am on the road for business, especially in a familiar or unfamiliar city, to stay a day later to enjoy it,” she said. “With the price of travel being high, it makes logical sense to combine the two if possible.” Before the pandemic, Higginbotham accepted a paid speaking engagement in Lake Placid. The location is close
enough that she extended her trip to a neighboring state to visit her brother. “I wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to travel that close to where he lived and schooled,” she said. She added that for tax purposes she separates her business and personal receipts to avoid mistakes in claiming personal expenses on her business tax deductions. Randy L. Zeigler, certified financial planner and private wealth adviser with Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC in Oswego, travels fairly regularly for business. When his trip’s purpose is to meet clients, he typically travels solo. “When I am traveling to attend training conferences once or twice per year, I often bring my wife along with me as our children are all grown and out of the house,” Zeigler said. “We
sometimes extend our time to make a short vacation out of the trip, especially if my wife is interested in the destination location.” As a self-employed person, he pays the full costs for all of his trips, giving him latitude to decide his own travel plans. “Like most self-employed people, I do not take enough time off each year and have never had even a two-week vacation in my entire career,” Zeigler said. “I cannot afford that much time away from my office.” Blending pleasure with business on a trip makes sense, especially for the self-employed and otherwise time crunched. Adding an extra day onto a trip for relaxation is easier than taking off an entire week solely for fun. Robin Guyle, travel adviser for
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