Have you heard of the term ‘Bleisure’?
Furukawa Electric explains how your hotel can enhance 'Bleisurers' experience with Laserway technology
Bleisure is a combination of the words ‘business’ and ‘leisure’ and, with that in mind, bleisure travel refers to the concept of combining professional business travel with personal leisure time.
Before the pandemics we usually heard of business travelers that usually tried to enjoy the weekend off somewhere they went for work. Nowadays, with the new scenario where people are more and more valuing the balance between work time and family/ leisure time, we see the bleisure tendency consolidating.
It is important to point the difference between bleisure adopters and the digital nomads because we can see different patters of behavior on them, since the bleisure does focus on a more “business” and serious approach, different than the digital nomads, that everybody already heard of and have a more flexible work and way of life, not necessarily having a home to go back to. In terms of occupation, a study from Expedia Group and Luth Research found that the most common duration of a bleisure trip was two nights (42%).
According to an article published by Forbes, younger workers are more likely to take bleisure trips than older ones. However, interestingly, there is not a huge generational divide here. Millennials make 38 % of bleisure trips, with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers accounting for 31 % each. The Forbes article also points out that 10 percent of all business trips are already bleisure trips.
This suggests bleisure holds universal appeal, different than the Glampers out there. Glamping is another new trend worldwide, meaning the combination of Glamour+ Camping. In these places guests will be in the middle of nature but will also have AC, hitting, high end décor, sophisticated bed sheets, hot tubs and can pay more than $1.000 for the day, a price superior than the one charged to stay at the famous luxurious hotel in Paris, Plaza Athénée. These concepts are growing at such a fast pace that the huge hotel chains are opening their own brands of Glampings and offering special deals for this new and promise Bleisure market, which is the case of the known hospitality chain, Four Seasons, that already has its own glamping, called “Tented Camp” in Thailand for example.
Furukawa has received many inquiries from Hotels owners worldwide requesting support to adapt its properties to offer the best of class technology to serve these new guests. In general, most of properties intends to implement fast, reliable Internet services as the first step, followed by other digital services like touchless appliances, digital key, fast check in / check out services, digital signage, guest room automation with smart speaker, and others. In the other hand, Owners are often concerned about payback of such investments.
In general, we have recommended owners to look at its local infrastructure network in the day zero. It is something you cannot see, as it is installed inside of ducts, but it is something you can feel when customer calls to reception desk to complain (when still decide to give Hotel a chance to fix that). It is something hidden, but everything is connected to and is the true “physical” connection between things and guests. In this sense, the main suggestion is to consider the implementation of fiber to the room technology to reach these Bleisure adopters standards.
Furukawa PON LAN optical solution, Laserway, brings the state-of-the-art technology, providing optical fiber technology as the ground of any service, throughout the whole property. “Bleisurers” will feel like having the same technology that they had at home (fiber to the home) but reaching its hotel room. Video conference services will be served by optical network, providing a fiber optical quality grade to video streaming when associated with a good Internet link.
Stability of services will not be a big issue for Local Network, due to characteristics of optical technology applied all over the property, connecting Access Points, Desktops, BMS Sytems, and other appliances. Payback can come earlier than expected not only pushed by Premium rates that owners achieve when offering the best Customer Experience but also by the characteristics of Furukawa Laserway solution. An analysis into Capex and Opex of this network solution shows that owners can save around 30% in Capex and 70% in Opex.
Furukawa ElectricLaserway solution can reach up to 20km distance, without any equipment in between. Much longer than the 100m distance provided by copper cable solution and Lan Switches. It means that quantity of active equipment and technical room will be reduced in comparison with conventional solution. Less equipment, less energy, less complexity. More savings, more reliability, more “Bleisurers” to frequent your property. Also, life cycle of optical fiber infrastructure solution is at least five times longer than conventional solution. Furukawa assuring the quality of its products, does offer a up to 25-year guarantee of its network solution.
If you manage a hotel and would like to know more about this technology to enhance the experience of your guests, contact us and we will be more than happy to set up a presentation or check our website to know more.
Furukawa Electric Group
Japanese company with more than 120 subsidiaries and modern research laboratories all over the world, Furukawa Electric Group is prepared to generate new technologies and products with the highest quality in the market for a more connected world. Furukawa provides innovative infrastructure for communication networks. Furukawa Electric's solutions were designed to offer high reliability thus reducing operating costs and increasing profit margins. Furukawa Connectivity System presents complete solutions from the equipment room up to the work area, providing indoor and outdoor cables and accessories, including GPON equipment while the broadband solutions portfolio presents complete solutions from the central office up to the subscriber's home.
Magno Fugisawa
Market Manager
Furukawa Electric