Definition of Bridge Holiday

The terms bridge holiday or holiday bridge refer to those weekends that are longer than usual. In this way, if Saturday and Sunday are accompanied by an equally festive Friday or Monday, the traditional weekend becomes a period known as a long weekend.

Obviously, this is a mini-vacation for the whole of the population. In Spain these vacation days are also known by the term aqueduct and in Chile they are spoken of as sandwich days.

A short vacation for workers and a problem for some employers

The holiday bridges represent a possibility of rest or leisure for the citizenship in general. A worker can use these days to do all kinds of activities, such as traveling, meeting friends and family, or pursuing his favorite hobby. However, this holiday period is not so attractive for some companies, as the production it is paralyzed and the economic benefits diminish.

This situation is very beneficial for some specific business sectors, such as catering, hospitality, airlines or all those sectors dedicated to the free time.

Holiday bridges have consequences for all types of sectors

In the official state bulletin they appear annually what will be the holidays of the year. This data allows to form the corresponding bridge and organize everything related to it. Thus, the worker plans his personal projects and the employer calculates the possible gains or losses depending on the activity he is engaged in.

On the other hand, other activities associated with bridges must be planned: the presence of traffic agents for the beginning and end of the mini-holidays or the hiring of staff to cope with the increase in consumption in certain sectors. At the same time, bank holidays have to be taken into account for the calculation of business days in some activities related to the administration.

The tourism sector is the great beneficiary

During these periods of the year, schools close and a large number of economic activities have to come to a halt. The great beneficiary of all this is, without a doubt, the tourism sector.

In countries like Spain, this circumstance represents an economic injection for all hotel establishments and for all the complementary offer associated with them. What rule Generally, bank holidays are suitable days for the tourism national and to a lesser extent for tourism of other nationalities.

Photo: Fotolia - Andrea Arnold