BLEISURE IN ASSOCIATION CONFERENCES

12 February 2024

While the business, education and networking elements of conferences continue to be the main priorities for the people who organise them and those who attend them, the opportunity for participants also to enjoy the leisure, cultural and sightseeing attractions of conference destinations appears to have assumed greater importance in recent years.

Conferences can provide leisure elements as part of their programmes, for example as organised pre- and post-conference tours and excursions to places of interest. But the individual participants can also choose to add extra days to their conference trips, to explore and enjoy the attractions of the destinations or simply to relax. By turning their conference trips into opportunities to take a short holiday, participants are joining the growing trend towards ‘bleisure’ – the combination of business trips and leisure breaks.

This report, based upon the findings of an online survey of conference planners, is the first analysis of conference organisers’ perspectives on the importance of the leisure, culture and sightseeing opportunities in the cities they choose as the destinations for their events. It explores the role of social programme elements such as pre- and post-conference tours, and it examines the conference planners’ perceptions of how their participants’ bleisure extensions to conferences are developing.

We believe that the findings detailed in this report are entirely relevant to the work of destination marketing organisations as well as people who design conferences of all types.

We would like to thank all of the conference planners who responded to our survey and generously agreed to share their opinions and observations.

Dr. Rob Davidson Managing Director MICE Knowledge www.miceknowledge.com Bregje Frens Co-founder & CCO Conferli www.conferli.com

See the report here

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