On a Sunday in late January, Melinda Buchmann, who lives in Florida and supervises shopper relations for RevShoppe, a 30-person distant firm advising organizations on gross sales methods and techniques, arrived in Banff, Alberta, to assist arrange a four-day firm assembly.

The final day of the occasion, her husband, Josh, a director of strategic partnerships for the supply firm DoorDash, who additionally works remotely, joined her. They spent two leisurely days mountain climbing in Banff Nationwide Park and visiting Lake Louise.

“I take benefit, as a result of I don’t know once I’m going to return,” Ms. Buchmann mentioned of the choice to mix downtime with a enterprise journey.

As postpandemic work life has modified, and preparations now embrace full-time workplace attendance in addition to hybrid and distant work, so, too, has enterprise journey. The phenomenon referred to as bleisure, or blended enterprise and leisure journey, was initially embraced largely by digital nomads. However such mixed journey is now additionally fashionable with individuals outdoors that group. Allied Market Analysis, a subsidiary of Allied Analytics, based mostly in Portland, Ore., estimated that the bleisure journey market was $315.3 billion in 2022 and would attain $731.4 billion by 2032.

As workers more and more add leisure time to their enterprise journeys, corporations are struggling to find out the place their authorized obligation to guard workers from hurt — their so-called responsibility of care — begins and ends. And employees might imagine that as a result of their journey began with enterprise, they may get all the assistance they want if one thing goes mistaken on the leisure finish. As a substitute, they need to usually contemplate the leisure a part of a visit as an everyday trip the place they cowl all bills and contingencies.

Corporations are accountable for realizing the place their workers are throughout a enterprise journey, protecting bills if an accident or emergency happens, securing new lodging if a resort is broken, even swapping out a damaged down rental automotive. Nonetheless, it’s not completely clear if that protection ends utterly after the convention or the final shopper assembly.

Corporations acknowledge that threats are rising, mentioned Robert Cole, senior analysis analyst specializing in lodging and leisure journey at Phocuswright, a market analysis firm. They’re making an attempt to determine the right way to deal with a precious firm useful resource, the worker, with out leaving themselves open to monetary danger or potential litigation.

“Crafting a complete coverage that balances enterprise targets, worker well-being and authorized concerns might be difficult,” Nikolaos Gkolfinopoulos, head of tourism at ICF, a consulting and know-how companies firm in Reston, Va., wrote in an e-mail.

Staff could also be on their very own with out realizing it and could also be shocked by out-of-pocket bills in the event that they require hospital care overseas or evacuation, mentioned Suzanne Morrow, chief govt of InsureMyTrip, a web-based insurance coverage journey comparability web site in Warwick, R.I.

Ms. Morrow mentioned medical protection supplied by an organization “is mostly just for the dates of the particular enterprise journey overseas.” If vacationers are extending the journey for private journey, she added, “they might need to safe emergency medical protection for that extra time overseas.”

Employers and workers are left to determine when the enterprise portion of the journey ends and the leisure phase begins, a major element if an worker has a medical emergency. “The place does the company legal responsibility finish?” mentioned Kathy Bedell, senior vice chairman at BCD Journey, a journey administration firm.

Corporations have various insurance policies to take care of the brand new journey amalgam. The chief govt of RevShoppe, Patricia McLaren, based mostly in Austin, Texas, mentioned the corporate supplied versatile journey choices and allowed workers to work anyplace they select.

Even so, there are constraints. The corporate requires all workers, together with executives, to signal legal responsibility and insurance coverage waivers when they’re on a voluntary company-sponsored journey, equivalent to an off-site assembly. Such waivers sometimes place duty on workers for their very own well-being. And if they bring about somebody, they’re accountable for that particular person’s bills.

Staff are accountable for requesting the paid day without work and notifying their managers of their whereabouts, though that half just isn’t a requirement. Managers have to make sure satisfactory staffing, Ms. McLaren mentioned.

Elsewhere, workers could not hassle to say the leisure portion of their journey. Eliot Lees, a vice chairman and managing director at ICF, mentioned he had been on journeys as a toddler together with his mother and father once they mixed enterprise and leisure. His mother and father have been lecturers, who would piggyback holidays onto conferences.

Now he does the identical. “I don’t assume I ever requested for approval,” he mentioned. (ICF has no formal business-leisure journey coverage. It’s allowed as a part of private day without work.) After a convention within the Netherlands final 12 months, he spent 4 days mountain climbing within the northern a part of the nation.

“I’m going anyplace, and take extra dangers than I ought to,” he mentioned. He mentioned he didn’t carry private journey or accident insurance coverage.

Any nonchalance could rapidly evaporate if a menace emerges. Safety specialists say even low-risk areas can turn into high-risk for a couple of days or even weeks of the 12 months.

“Corporations are involved about dropping visibility right into a traveler’s whereabouts in the event that they booked flights and inns outdoors their company journey administration firm,” Benjamin Thorne, senior intelligence supervisor in London for Crisis24, a subsidiary of GardaWorld, wrote in an e-mail. “The corporate might imagine the traveler is in a single metropolis when, in actuality, they may have booked a vacation package deal to a different close by metropolis. This lack of visibility by the corporate makes it tough to help vacationers when a catastrophe happens.”

He additionally raised the chance that “a traveler with bleisure journey reservations and expectations could discover their work journey canceled because of modifications within the danger setting or firm coverage, disrupting their leisure plans.”

Will an organization step in off hours if there’s an issue? “That will depend on how you’re booked,” Mr. Cole, the senior analysis analyst at Phocuswright, mentioned. A rule of thumb is the additional you get from company management, the larger the grey space will get.

Half of GoldSpring Consulting’s shoppers take the duty for the complete journey, mentioned Will Tate, a companion on the consultancy based mostly in Cross Roads, Texas, and an authorized public accountant. They don’t need the reputational danger. The opposite half say: “The enterprise journey ended Friday. That’s after we finish our responsibility of care.”

Some corporations are attempting to outline and slender the grey space. “In case you are clearly on private time, there isn’t a authorized requirement in your employer to supply for you,” mentioned Nicole Web page, a lawyer whose observe contains employment legislation at Reavis Web page Leap in New York.

Uber supplies workers with advisories earlier than a visit, journey assessments, security ideas whereas touring and emergency journey help, together with medical assist, airport journey help, pressing and emergency help, and misplaced or stolen private property insurance coverage whether or not they’re on enterprise or pleasure journey or a mix.

And at DoorDash, Chris Cherry, head of world security and safety, wrote in an e-mail that “whereas private journey just isn’t one thing we monitor, now we have acquired requests to increase our journey help capabilities to private journey.” Mr. Cherry mentioned in these instances, the corporate has manually added worker leisure itineraries to its journey danger administration system and “supplied the identical stage of overwatch that we do for normal enterprise journey.”

The Buchmanns plan to journey this month to Barcelona, Spain, for the McDonald’s Worldwide Conference. DoorDash can have a sales space, and Mr. Buchmann will work on the exhibit flooring and in addition entertain shoppers.

Ms. Buchmann will accompany him. She plans to go sightseeing within the morning, and work within the afternoons and evenings Barcelona time. She may also take three days of paid day without work and has shared her plans with Ms. McLaren, the RevShoppe chief govt.

They’ll keep a day after the convention and plan to go to the Dalí Theater and Museum in Figueres. “I’m positive there might be no scarcity of tapas and window buying alongside means,” Mr. Buchmann mentioned. He expects to be again at work the following Monday.