Business travel is the backbone of the global economy.

A tree is only ever as strong as the roots no one sees. 

The canopy gets the photographs. The roots do the holding — quietly, underground, indispensable. 

Business travel is the economy's root system: unphotographed, structurally load-bearing, and the first thing anyone notices only once it's gone. 

A supplier gave away real value for years — service that became the backbone of processes inside its clients' businesses. When the company was sold, new owners cut it first: it had never been priced, so it generated no revenue. The industry is still reeling — spending far more to repair the processes than it would ever have cost to pay for the service in the first place. 

Fresh out of a degree in tourism management, my first job was at Worldhotels in London. A couple of colleagues were barely ever at their desks — gone for days, secretive about where. I finally asked. The answer was business travel: an entire industry quietly running the corporate world, and one my degree had never mentioned once. 

The Practice