Tokyo has come out tops as the best bleisure city in a survey of 26 cities in Asia-Pacific, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 bleisure barometer: Asia’s best cities for work and recreation report.
The other Asia-Pacific cities in the top 10 are Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Shanghai, Beijing, Osaka, Perth and Seoul respectively.
Cities were scored out of five possible points, with scores tabulated from responses of a survey of 1,500 business travellers from around the world, which questioned them about a variety of factors impacting business travel, such as ease of transportation and availability of consumer goods and services. Scores were used to determine rankings as well as star groupings, with five-star cities scoring above the average and one-star cities scoring below.
These are the results:
One significant finding from the study is that Asia’s best cities for bleisure are not necessarily its most liveable. Although the specific questions used in the survey were inspired by The Economist’s Global Liveability Index, some striking differences emerged.
For example, wealthy cities such as Auckland, New Zealand, and Adelaide, Australia, sit atop the league tables for liveability, but drastically underperform on bleisure. Meanwhile, Shanghai and Beijing, while rarely considered highly liveable, show their rising business might in the bleisure study, filling the four-star tier.
The study also assessed specific aspects of the bleisure experience, such as what makes for a successful business trip and what travellers look for in their leisurely diversions. On the former question, ease of transportation takes the top spot, followed closely by safety and orderliness of streets/urban areas and quality of business facilities. On the question of leisure activities, dining out won by a large margin, with visiting local historical or heritage sites and going to an art museum/gallery ranking second and third.
The report, including full scoring and star bracket methodology, as well as an infographic and video, can be found here.
