Alicia Rockmore, chief executive of Buttoned Up, a Michigan-based business offering kits to help people organise their lives, is keen that her five-year-old daughter sees the world. So, when she goes away on business trips, she often takes her too.

Childcare arrangements for Lucy vary from relatives at the destination to an accompanying nanny. “I’m a big believer in her seeing the country and seeing things,” says Ms Rockmore, “It’s a great way of mixing business and pleasure.”

Ms Rockmore is one of a number of business travellers who seek to combine travel with spending time with the family. According to research by the US-based National Business Travel Association, 62 per cent of US business travellers add a leisure component to at least one trip a year. And of those, two-thirds bring family or friends.

In an age in which work is creeping into ever more of our lives, perhaps it makes sense to let leisure creep back. If organised well, it can be an efficient way of spending time with the family in interesting places, and give children an idea of what a parent does.

Some companies incorporate family activities into work travel. Kurt Barrett, general manager of Williams Rice Milling in California, recently went on a trip to San Diego organised by the California Warehouse Association. “The organisers actually involved the family,” he says. “At this particular convention you’d have meetings in the morning and then you had the afternoon with your family.”

About 40 per cent of those attending, Mr Barrett says, brought families, and events included excursions to Sea World and museums. “People want to spend more time with their families. It’s also nice to meet the families of people you do business with. You get to see another side of them.”

A senior manager who works in the UK for a large service company takes his wife on some business trips. “We often have annual meetings in places such as Spain. So [my wife and I] have travelled out the weekend before and done a few days’ tourism. It’s like a short break. Then, while I work, she does her own thing. Of course, you do worry that she might be bored by herself when you’re working.”

But if you are frequently away on business it can be a good way to spend time with your partner. “It also means you see something of the countries you visit, rather than just Hiltons of the world.”

The trick to taking partners or children away on business is to ensure everyone knows the ground rules. When the working partner is conducting business, they cannot be expected to play their normal family role. Children and partners should not intrude on work time. Ms Rockmore says that if her daughter has accompanied her on a trip, “I don’t advertise to business contacts that I’m with family. I’m there to see them.”

This trend appears most advanced in the US. According to Ms Rockmore, this is due to the more progressive human resources policies adopted by US workplaces. She adds: “It’s also part of people trying to put together a more seamless lifestyle which blends work and family.”

A more prosaic reason may be that holiday allowances in Europe are more generous. If you have 25 days’ annual leave, a day spent travelling is no big deal. If you have only 10 it is another matter.

NBTA says also, there is a growing reluctance in the US to take long holidays. “There was a long-standing tradition of taking a two-week vacation in the summer but, anecdotally, these vacations seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

“Not only do Americans have less vacation, they take less advantage of what they have. In order to fit some family time in, they’re adding a few days on to the beginning or end of business trips,” it says.

Not everyone believes the trend is a good idea. Stephen Overell of the Work Foundation, a UK think-tank, worries that the blurring of boundaries between work and family could result in difficulties and disappointment.

On one hand, the family may be expecting a holiday when one partner is in work mode. On the other, the working partner may feel guilty about leaving.

Mr Overell also says there could be questions about where work expenses stop and personal ones start – taking family along blurs the lines. “Even if everything is in order, it can be a question of perceptions, especially if you’re a senior executive. It can be misinterpreted quite easily.”