Special Edition for the London - World Travel Market 2025
Once upon a time, “business travel” meant a stiff collar, a boarding pass, and a PowerPoint.
Now it means packing your laptop next to a yoga mat, spending Tuesday in a café in Split, and calling it “team alignment”.
The digital nomad revolution didn’t just tweak the rules — it shredded the entire corporate manual, laminated the scraps, and used them as coasters for a spritz.
From ‘duty trips’ to dopamine trips
Professionals no longer travel for work — they travel with work.
The great pandemic migration cracked open a truth that airlines and HR departments tried to ignore for decades: you don’t need to be in a conference room to be productive, and you don’t need a lanyard to feel important.
Bleisure — the hybrid child of “business” and “leisure” — became the word that executives first mocked, then monetised.
It’s no longer a guilty pleasure to stay the weekend after your meetings in Lisbon or Dubrovnik; it’s a strategy. “Personal enrichment” now sits proudly next to “quarterly goals” on corporate slide decks.
And as global business travel spending rebounds (up 10–13% in 2025), the smart ones are extending their stays — not to close more deals, but to remember what daylight feels like.
The visa that changed the map
Enter the digital nomad visa — a bureaucratic miracle that actually made sense.
From Portugal to Dubai, from Croatia to Costa Rica, governments realised that remote workers aren’t backpackers with Wi-Fi. They’re taxpayers, renters, community-builders. They buy sourdough, not just postcards.
These visas didn’t just legitimise a lifestyle; they rewired entire economies.
In Madeira, the “Nomad Village” filled cafés, co-livings, and surf schools year-round. In Tbilisi, Georgia, co-working spaces became diplomatic hubs. Even in places like Ho Chi Minh City and Lagos, the hum of Zoom calls replaced the drone of generators.
The nomads brought more than laptops. They brought curiosity, cross-pollination, and in many cases — spreadsheets of local freelancers they’d rather hire than fly in corporate teams.
The death (and rebirth) of MICE
Meanwhile, the world of MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) — once the stronghold of grey carpets and branded tote bags — is quietly rebranding itself.
Now it’s about “experiential learning”, “eco-conscious networking”, and “micro-retreats”. Translation: fewer hotel buffets, more yoga on rooftops.
Forecasts predict the MICE market to hit $1.4 trillion by 2028. But this time, the growth won’t come from badge-scanning or name tags — it’ll come from cities reinventing themselves as creative ecosystems instead of convention zones.
Cape Town offers oceanfront co-working. Tallinn sells itself as “Europe’s digital embassy”. Dubai promises high-speed luxury and low-tax peace of mind. Even mid-sized cities — Split, Palermo, Valencia — are perfecting the art of professional nomadism with affordable rents and better weather than Berlin.
When work became the new travel
Digital nomads aren’t escaping work. They’re redesigning it.
They’ve made Slack calls from beaches, pitch decks from night trains, and job interviews between two ferry rides. What used to be called “remote work” has simply become work.
The real story isn’t about laptops on beaches. It’s about mindset: the belief that your life shouldn’t be something you pause while you earn a living.
For many, the office was never the enemy — the lack of choice was.
And as this shift accelerates, governments are rewriting residency laws faster than corporates are rewriting HR handbooks. Japan now experiments with “workcation” programs. Spain’s digital nomad visa brought thousands of remote workers to Canary Islands towns that once lived off seasonal tourism. Italy — late but learning — is building bridges between regeneration and remote work.
Business travel, upgraded
So, could digital nomad visas really be the future of business travel?
In truth, they already are. Only, they don’t look like the future we imagined. There’s no uniform, no fixed itinerary, and the expense report includes pottery classes and coworking memberships.
The “business traveller” is no longer a transient figure passing through hotel corridors; they’re the ones staying long enough to know the name of the baker, the bus route, and which café has the best Wi-Fi and the best wine.
The new currency of business travel is not miles — it’s belonging.
Nomag’s London takeaway
At World Travel Market 2025, amid the buzzwords and brochures, one thing is clear: the future of work and travel isn’t about how far you go — it’s about how well you integrate.
The office has dissolved into the landscape, and the new boardroom might just be a terrace in Valletta or a co-living kitchen in Athens.
Breaking free no longer means quitting your job.
It means bringing your life with you — wherever the signal, and the story, takes you.