“Getting to know the country in the morning, and then being fully motivated to start work in the afternoon – Bleisure travel is firmly integrated into my daily work routine”. Werner Laske, Managing Director of Wela
Working from anywhere is everyday life for Werner Laske. The German lives in Gozo, where his web marketing company Wela is based. Over and over he travels the world for months on end. We talked to him about bike tours around Bangkok airport, internet speed tests and working from hotel lounges as his preference to co-working.
How exactly should we understand your working life?
When I’m not in my offices on Gozo or in Hamburg, I work for my clients, who are mainly in German speaking countries, from hotels all over the world. I travel for several months a year, especially in Asia, because I like the time zones there best. There, I prepare the customer updates in the hotel lounges, which are equipped with F&B service like exclusive co-working spaces – for me it’s better than booking a co-working space. I am often in Kuala Lumpur, for example, and I like to be at Le Meridien in Sentral or the Sheraton Imperial.
How much Bleisure takes place on these trips?
From Kuala Lumpur I like to travel at the weekends to Langkawi, the Desaru Coast or to Mulu in Borneo in the rainforest. Everything is quickly accessible, even for Medan or Singapore you can be there within an hour.
When I lived in the Sheraton in Kobe for a month last year, I visited local destinations every other day before 8 am. Sometimes I did a bicycle tour in Osaka, sometimes a short trip to Kyoto. At 3pm local time and 9am German time I was usually back at the hotel and worked until midnight – fully motivated because I had so many new sensations and experiences during the day.
I felt the same way in Bangkok. Every morning I took my racing bike to the Sky Lane Suvarnabhumi on the hotel bus and rode two laps of the bike racetrack around the airport of Bangkok which is about 23 km. In New Zealand I even worked two hours later and was able to do something all day long. But this requires a lot of self-discipline.
Time zones such as in Vancouver are more difficult. When I lived there for a month, I had to start work at midnight and had time to drive around from 11 o’clock in the morning. But, especially at the weekends I visited interesting destinations like Vancouver Island or the Sunshine Coast. Both can be reached by ferry, and I booked a lot there via Airbnb.
How do you choose the hotels where you work and from where you travel?
I have ambassador status with a personal assistant due to the many trips I have made with Marriott. This makes traveling a lot easier for me, for example by allowing me to check in when I want. When choosing a hotel, the lounge and fitness facilities are important to me. But the decisive factor is the Internet speed in the hotel. After all, working as a web optimizer from anywhere, I need reliable lines, because I have web sessions with my customers every day. So I contact potential hotels weeks in advance and have speed tests carried out. Several hotels usually fall through the cracks, even though they give me their full speed.
What are your next work goals and Bleisure plans?
Soon I will be travelling again in Malaysia, especially in the north of Borneo, in Kota Kinabalu. Everything there is very modern, which you wouldn’t expect when you mention Borneo. Afterwards I will go to Seoul and then take the “Bullet-Train” to Busan in the south of the country – you don’t need to worry about the internet speed there. But in 2020 I would like to visit some local destinations like Jordan for work and Bleisure travel.
Sylvie Konzack …
has rarely met such a thoroughbred Bleisure traveller. The hotels in turn will have acquired great respect for his internet speed tests.
Fotos: Werner Laske
