Business or Pleasure? More Than Ever, the Answer is Both

Rising travel costs have led many travelers to get resourceful when planning their vacations, and growing numbers of business travelers are finding business trips an opportunity to throw in a little time off. Nearly three-fourths (72%) of those surveyed recently by Orbitz say they've extended a business trip with a leisure component in the last year. Adding to that number, 81% plan to extend an upcoming work trip by adding vacation time with family or friends.

As some business travel destinations don't typically lend themselves to an appealing getaway, more than one-third (35%) of those questioned say they've intentionally coordinated a business trip to a location where they'd like to vacation, in an effort to combine the two. Another notable trend shows that almost half (43%) of respondents recently had a significant other or friend accompany them on a business trip, without staying extra days but simply sharing a room with their guest and seeing them as time allowed.

When asked what major city makes it easiest to extend business trips with leisure, New York City topped the list. Travelers also ranked San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Orlando among the best cities to combine the two. For international travel, London and Paris were overwhelmingly noted as good places to add leisure time to a business trip.

As a matter of convenience and personal cost-cutting measures, half of the survey respondents are currently exploring ways to extend business trips with leisure more frequently. To take advantage of discounted rates provided to their businesses, over 80% said that they have continued their stay at the same hotel when they extended a business trip with leisure, in an effort to capture that "corporate" rate. Of the times that the leisure destination was in a remote location, approximately 70% stated that they are willing to travel by car from a business city to a leisure destination, 47% are willing to travel 1-3 hours and 22% are willing to travel less than one hour.

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