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Industry Trends 8 min read 2025-04-01

Bleisure Travel: How to Attract Remote Workers to Your Holiday Rental

The bleisure trend — blending business and leisure travel — is creating a lucrative new guest segment for holiday rental hosts. Here's how to capture it in 2025.


Bleisure Travel: How to Attract Remote Workers to Your Holiday Rental

One of the most significant structural changes in travel behaviour to emerge from the pandemic era is the blending of business and leisure travel — now widely referred to as 'bleisure'. Where once work travel and leisure travel were almost entirely separate categories, flexible and remote working have created a large and growing segment of travellers who do both simultaneously.

For holiday rental hosts, this isn't a trend to observe from the sidelines. Bleisure travellers and remote workers represent one of the highest-value guest segments available in 2025: they stay longer than typical leisure guests, they book in mid-week slots that holiday lets often struggle to fill, and they tend to be reliable, responsible guests who treat properties well.

This guide covers the bleisure landscape in 2025, what remote workers actually need from a holiday rental, how to position your property to attract them, and how to price for extended working stays.

The Scale of the Bleisure Opportunity

The numbers behind the bleisure trend are significant. As of 2025:

  • An estimated 35 million people worldwide identify as digital nomads — those who work remotely while travelling continuously or semi-continuously
  • A much larger group — surveys suggest around 60 million workers globally — have some form of remote work flexibility that allows them to work from different locations for days or weeks at a time
  • In the UK specifically, approximately 28% of workers have some form of hybrid or fully remote arrangement, and around 12% have location flexibility that extends beyond their home city
  • Airbnb data shows that monthly stays (28+ days) have grown consistently since 2021 and now represent a meaningful share of total booking nights

The economic impact on individual hosts is substantial. A remote worker staying for three or four weeks at a weekly rate typically generates 2–3x the revenue of a succession of weekend bookings, with a fraction of the operational overhead.

Who Is the Bleisure Traveller?

Understanding who bleisure travellers are helps you position your property and communication correctly.

The Remote-Work-Anywhere Employee

Fulltime employed workers whose employer allows location flexibility. They typically work standard hours (9–5 or equivalent) but can do so from anywhere with good internet. They often extend a personal holiday by working remotely for a week before or after, or take a month-long 'workation' at a destination they've always wanted to experience more deeply.

Typical profile: 28–45, professional (tech, finance, marketing, consulting, creative sectors), mid-to-high income, UK or European.

The Freelancer or Contractor

Self-employed professionals who have inherently location-independent work. They may work from different bases throughout the year, choosing locations based on personal interest, lifestyle, or cost.

Typical profile: 25–50, wide range of professions, higher than average digital literacy and self-organisation skills.

The Digital Nomad

The fully location-independent worker who moves continuously between bases, often spending 2–8 weeks in each location before moving on. This guest has very specific, well-articulated needs and is highly review-literate — they've stayed in many properties and they know exactly what they're looking for.

Typical profile: 24–40, often in tech/content/consulting/creative fields, values experience and community as well as workspace functionality.

The Conference Extension Guest

A business traveller who attends a conference or meeting in (or near) your location and extends their stay by 2–5 days for personal exploration. This guest is often less price-sensitive because their base costs are on an expense account and the personal portion feels like a bargain.

What Remote Workers Actually Need From a Holiday Rental

The requirements of a bleisure traveller differ meaningfully from a typical leisure guest. Understanding these needs is essential for positioning your property accurately.

Non-Negotiable: Fast, Reliable Internet

This cannot be overstated. Slow or unreliable WiFi is an immediate disqualifier for remote workers, and a single dropped video call at a critical moment can ruin an entire stay and generate a negative review.

The 2025 minimum bar for a remote-work-capable property:

  • Minimum 50Mbps download, 20Mbps upload (symmetrical connections are better for video conferencing)
  • Stable connection without dropouts — speed tests are less important than consistency
  • Router positioned centrally in the property (not tucked in a cupboard)
  • Consider a mesh network system for larger properties to ensure coverage in all rooms including garden/outdoor workspace

Actions to take:

  1. Run a speed test (Speedtest.net) from your property and note the results
  2. Test the connection during peak hours (evenings/weekends) to check for congestion
  3. Prominently display the WiFi speed in your listing — be specific ('120Mbps fibre broadband' vs 'fast WiFi')

A Proper Workspace

A breakfast bar stool in front of a laptop isn't a workspace — and remote workers who spend 6–8 hours per day working know the difference. What a remote worker needs:

  • A dedicated desk: not a dining table that needs to be cleared for meals, but a desk or dedicated workspace
  • An ergonomic chair: perhaps the single most important physical requirement for someone working a full day — a bad chair is a significant problem
  • Good lighting: natural light is ideal; a desk lamp for evening work is essential
  • Monitor or display: higher-end properties are increasingly including an external monitor, which is transformative for productivity and a genuine differentiator
  • Power access: enough sockets near the desk for laptop, phone, external monitor, and other devices

A Quiet Working Environment

Noise is the other major workspace concern. Urban properties near busy roads, properties shared with other guests (such as a main house plus annexe), and properties with thin walls can all be problematic for professional calls and focused work.

Be honest in your listing about the noise environment. If your property is quiet during working hours, say so specifically. If it's noisier in the evenings but calm during the day, that context is useful.

Kitchen Facilities for Long Stays

For stays of a week or more, kitchen quality becomes significantly more important than for short weekend breaks. Remote workers cooking for themselves regularly need:

  • A well-equipped kitchen with good knives, pots, and cooking equipment
  • Sufficient food storage (fridge space and pantry)
  • A dishwasher (for solo or couple stays of 2+ weeks, washing up by hand becomes a grind)
  • A good kettle and coffee setup — remote workers are, as a category, significant coffee consumers

Laundry Facilities

For stays beyond 5–7 nights, a washing machine moves from 'nice to have' to 'essential'. For stays of 2+ weeks, a tumble dryer or good drying facilities become important. Be specific about what you have — 'washing machine available' leaves guests uncertain; 'washing machine and dryer in the property' is clear.

Pricing Strategies for Bleisure and Extended Stays

Pricing for extended stays requires a different approach than pricing for weekend breaks.

Weekly and Monthly Discounts

Offering a meaningful weekly discount (15–25%) and a monthly discount (30–40%) is standard practice for capturing extended stays. On a property charging £150/night, a 20% weekly discount (£840/week vs £1,050 at the nightly rate) is compelling to a remote worker while still delivering excellent weekly revenue to you — and dramatically reducing cleaning, changeover, and communication overhead.

Mid-Week Rate Optimisation

Remote workers and bleisure travellers often check in on Sundays or Mondays and check out on Fridays — filling the mid-week calendar that holiday lets historically struggle with. If your current pricing doesn't differentiate between mid-week and weekend nights, extended-stay pricing should.

Last-Minute Availability Windows

Remote workers are often flexible on exact dates and may enquire about properties with short notice. A last-minute pricing strategy that offers competitive rates for upcoming mid-week slots can capture this demand.

Marketing Your Property to Remote Workers

Platform-Specific Positioning

  • Airbnb: list as suitable for 'long-term stays' and enable monthly pricing. Use relevant amenities tags ('dedicated workspace', 'high-speed WiFi', 'laptop-friendly workspace')
  • Booking.com: list with 'long-stay' options enabled; Booking.com surfaces these to guests filtering for extended accommodation
  • Specific remote worker platforms: Workations.co, Remote Base, and similar platforms specifically match remote workers with accommodation — listing on these expands your reach to a highly targeted audience
  • Your direct website: create a page or section specifically addressing remote workers and bleisure guests — describe the workspace, state the WiFi speed, mention the local environment for walks and decompression

Listing Copy for Remote Workers

Specific language that resonates:

  • 'High-speed fibre broadband (120Mbps) — ideal for video conferencing'
  • 'Dedicated home office with ergonomic chair and external monitor'
  • 'Quiet, focused working environment during the day'
  • 'Steps from coastal walks for decompression between meetings'
  • 'Well-equipped kitchen for self-catering during longer stays'

Creating a Remote Worker Welcome Experience

Guests who use your property as a working base for 2–4 weeks are building a temporary life in your space. Small thoughtful gestures make a meaningful difference:

  • A 'remote worker welcome kit' — a good coffee supply, a notepad and pens, a USB hub or power strip
  • A list of the best local coffee shops with WiFi (for days when a change of scene helps)
  • Information about quiet parks, walks, and outdoor spaces near the property
  • A list of local co-working spaces (for guests who want social working options)
  • Flexibility on check-in and check-out times where operationally possible (remote workers often have non-standard schedules)

Stay Ahead with LetPilot

LetPilot helps holiday home hosts manage extended stays, automate long-stay guest communication, and keep their calendars optimised across direct bookings and OTA channels — making it easier to attract and retain the high-value bleisure guest segment that's transforming the holiday rental market. Try LetPilot free at letpilot.co — no credit card required.