“The topics of remote work, bleisure, and workation are currently becoming more professional than ever before. Associations are dedicating new knowledge platforms and summits to them. Scientists are developing a monitor. And companies want implementable regulations. Talking about growing structures and gaps to be filled.” Sylvie Konzack
Quite a few people were probably surprised when, two years ago, the DZT (German National Tourist Board) and the GCB (German Convention Bureau) published particularly strong figures on bleisure demand and the willingness of international conference travellers to spend money (see also interview on p. 16 f.). Staying in the country longer after a meeting, conference or event is clearly becoming an established option for many business travellers. Employers who create the framework for this are seen as more attractive, and tourism professionals are delighted to generate a greater number of guests – including using the workation concept.
It’s a win-win situation that has brought forward agreement for years. However, several parties must also work together to further develop the issues in a well-founded manner. Because what sounds “modern and uncomplicated” at first glance quickly proves to be “complex” in practice, emphasises Chefsache Business Travel, an initiative of the travel management companies in the German Travel Association (DRV), among others. And then there is also the scepticism of some companies that bleisure means more leisure, meaning more holiday than work. The point is simply that both elements are added together to achieve more than the sum of their parts – as a work and travel concept of the future.
More hybrid concepts
In the meantime, significantly more unified definitions of the term have become established. Bleisure, workation, coworkation – all of these terms are more clearly communicated by science, associations, and the media. “Coworkation is a specialized term from the world of work and means combining work and vacation locations in an existing or new group. The added value lies in the ‘co’: away from the normal workplace, people can work better and more creatively together in nature, etc.,” said Veronika Engel, CEO of CoworkationALPS e.V. and regional manager at REO Oberland KU, at a workation expert panel in Munich in October. Coworkation provider Julia Staudinger showed how she started d’Kammer on a farm in the Allgäu region and now attracts well-known companies for coworkation hours or days .
Specialised providers such as herself are also a subject of the “Bleisure & Workation Monitor Germany’”, which was set up in 2025 by Professors Andreas Zimmer, Peter Neumann and Sven Pastowski from IU International University. The research team has just published its initial findings, which show that bleisure is already much more widespread in tourism than was previously assumed. Two out of three businesses report having had guests who took advantage of bleisure or workation. Overall, however, neither of the two have yet been systematically established on the supply side.
Julia Staudinger, Veronika Engel and Sylvie Konzack in the panel discussion on workation concepts
Clear product structures and consistent marketing approaches are often still in the process of being developed. At the same time, another finding is that players such as destination management organisations (DMOs) and convention bureaus have so far only played a minor role – even though almost 70 percent of surveyed accommodation providers believe that a sustainable market cannot emerge without local networks and coordinated approaches. “There is clear potential here,” Andreas Zimmer is convinced, pointing to DMOs such as Rhineland-Palatinate and cities such as Düsseldorf, which are already successfully putting together explicit trade fair combination offers.
The Brandenburg tourism marketing organisation has also already had some experience with bleisure and workation, which has led to modified strategies: Over the last two or three years, new businesses and concepts have emerged that address the interplay between work, leisure, and nature more frequently, often with a focus on quality of stay, design, retreat, and special locations (Nook Bad Saarow, Teupitz, 360 Grad, etc.). At the same time, workation and bleisure concepts are no longer being developed in isolation, but are now understood as hybrid models because they are more economically successful. “The aim is to support viable, market-oriented offers rather than catering to a short-term trend,” a spokesperson for the DMO of Brandenburg.
Well, how does all of this come together? The GCB has just founded the Blend_it! initiative with the business travel association VDR as a central platform for blended travel. Together, the two organisations want to bring together knowledge, research, practice, and a network of experts from business, science, and tourism. (More on this in the interview on page 16f).
For experts like Andreas Zimmer, this is the correct way forward. “However, it also has to be clear to everyone that we should not rely solely on past figures when it comes to this topic,” he says. “We are operating in a pioneering market. Above all, it is important to try things out with enthusiasm, allow innovation and develop a vision.”
Sylvie Konzack …
… thinks the growing commitment to greater professionalism in the bleisure and workation sector is fantastic. She hopes that everyone will retain their innovative spirit and not get bogged down in trivial details.
Photos: © iStock.com/jacoblund, Kai Böcking, IU Internationale Hochschule
