Workcation: more work, more vacation, or both?

Remote workers who have temporarily relocated their home offices from Berlin to Malaga talk about a concept that has risen from the pandemic

LAURENCE CRUMBIE

Sunday, 23 May 2021, 09:47

Marketing in the 21st century loves to blend words. Holistay, staycation and bleisure are just a few of the terms that now feature frequently on the websites or blogs of tourism companies. The latter, defined as adding some leisure activities or sightseeing onto a business excursion, appeals to our desire to kill two birds with one stone and is growing steadily in popularity. In fact, a 2017 report from the Global Business Travel Association in partnership with Hilton found that bleisure travel accounts for seven per cent of all business trips, with women more likely to undertake it than men.

The portmanteau - or blend of words - most in vogue currently though is workcation (also spelt 'workation'), which originally denoted heading off to a beautiful, isolated location in the countryside and working from there for around a week, often on an organised trip for which you would have to take time off work. Aficionados of such workcations describe them as productive escapes from the office, a change of scene that enables one to approach problems from a different angle, but critics see them as intrinsic contradictions - neither quite work nor vacation, but another example of how the line that separates our personal lives from our professional ones is becoming ever finer, to the point of vanishing entirely.

The pandemic

Like so many things during the pandemic though, the term workcation has morphed in meaning. A Skyscanner article from December 2020 defines it as home office relocation: workcators pick a destination and work there remotely for a set amount of time, "whether that be one month or six months", unlike digital nomads, who hop from one place to another and "generally don't have an end date to their travel plans".

An entire industry has spawned around this trend. In the absence of tourists, hotels across southern Europe have converted their facilities into remote working spaces, attracting young businesspeople in particular, and Homelike, an accommodation rental platform aimed at digital nomads, is expanding throughout Spain. It recently landed in Malaga, which is experiencing an influx of remote workers.

"I wanted to go somewhere where it's warm and sunny and the restrictions are less severe than in Germany," Antonio Hersonski, a 27-year-old Customer Relations Manager from Berlin, told SUR in English. "I found flights to Malaga for 13 euros, so I said: 'Let's do it'."

Hersonski, who could not have worked remotely before the pandemic, originally planned to spend only the first week of April in Malaga, but he soon decided to stay over the summer.

"I have a healthier work-life balance now," he explained. "In Berlin I would sometimes work until 9pm because there was nothing else to do."

When asked if he feels his stay has been more work or more vacation, he says it has been both. "Despite working fewer hours, I'm more productive because I'm looking forward to going out in the evening."

It's a similar situation for Antoine Garoux, a 22-year-old Market Development Manager also based in Berlin. Like Hersonski, Garoux arrived in Malaga in early April and has also extended his stay. Although he values remote working and is considering spending some of the summer in Portugal as well, he does see the downsides.

"The problem is you lose the company culture," he said. "I got recruited during Covid and have spent almost no time with my colleagues."

For Hersonski, this is not such an issue. Like many of his coworkers, but not all, he is enjoying remote working and says he would no longer accept a job where he is forced to work in the office regularly.

"I think I could go to the office like three or four times a year on special occasions and to meet my colleagues [...] but I can't imagine going back to the office permanently," he said.

Escape

Both Hersonski and Garoux expect remote working to remain a trend after the pandemic, though not necessarily workcations, which Garoux believes most bosses would view unfavourably.

"If you say you're going to the south of Spain to work, it can sound like holiday," he said. "I hope the mentality changes, so it becomes more result-driven than form-driven."

Even though they fit the Skyscanner definition of workcators, both Hersonski and Garoux would define themselves first and foremost as lockdown escapers. Hersonski feels guilty about this escapism whenever he talks to his friends "stuck in rainy, cold Berlin", but he does not have to worry about spreading the virus as he has already been vaccinated.

Garoux, who has not been immunised, also has a clear conscience as he believes that the German government has "failed" its people, especially the young, and hence feels no loyalty to remain in Germany during lockdown.

In fact, he may even head to Argentina in late 2021, but only if restrictions there improve. After all, would a workcation that entailed a reduction in freedom not defeat its main purpose?

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