It’s Always About The People
by David DiFranco
Travel involves taking people to different places. But not merely that. If getting people from one place to another was the crux of it, we would be talking about transportation, not travel. Travel is about going to different places for the express purpose of experiencing things. This is the essence of what we as travel-providers are focused on. Yes, we want our products to cost less. We want them to be devoid of delays or interruptions. But above all, we want them to be exhilarating, memorable and life-changing. As our mission statement here at Corporate Travel captures well, the collective purpose for which we are engaged is to enhance lives, promote culture, and to open the world to our clients.
So how is that done?
In second grade we are taught what nouns are. Nouns are words that represent people, places and things. And in our sector of the travel industry where we focus on experiential travel, all three of those feature prominently in our products. The people we introduce our clients to, the hidden places that fill all their senses, and the profound, tangible things our guests are able to contemplate first-hand are the building blocks of any experiential travel encounter. We connect our guests with the exotic, historic, and sacred places of the world in ways that could never be done without our help. But what makes these places and things worth experiencing? Why do people invest so much of their financial and emotional resources to visit and interact physically with other objects and foreign locations across our planet? The answer is because someone, somewhere, at some previous point in time suffered some strife, exerted some inspired influence, or achieved some profound accomplishment to give those locations and those things extraordinary value.
The clients we serve take millions of photos every year to prove they have encountered certain places and things. They plaster their evidence across Instagram and Facebook as if to proclaim, “Look! Here is the moment I did something that changed my life!” Here I am standing next to Michelangelo’s David, strolling atop the Great Wall of China, or marveling among the stones of Machu Picchu! Here I stood overwhelmed on the hallowed shores of Normandy where men bled for our freedom. Here I sang with my fellow choristers on the revered stage of Carnegie Hall. Here I trod the streets of Jerusalem where Jesus Christ himself walked, ate, cured, and died for humanity. In the end, they are just places and things. But they are very special places and things. And they were made special, by people.
What unknown craft or lost technology did the ancients employ to heave the megaliths of Stonehenge into place? How is Gettysburg more than a mere field in the middle of farm country, save for the epic battle that ensued there over a century ago? Is the Burj Khalifa captivating just because it’s tall, or is it the fact that its unfathomable height is made possible only by the unbridled imagination and engineering of humankind? Is St. Peter’s in Rome relevant because of the basilica that is there, or is the basilica there because St. Peter’s was first made relevant by the martyrdom of St. Peter himself on that very spot? People are behind the significant places on Earth. 
Of course, in some instances, nature provides the marvels. Majestic mountains, calving glaciers, and tropical beaches offer magnificent experiences without the influence of man. And the scenic wonders of our gorgeous planet will always supply exhilarating and recuperative options for travelers. But while nature provides beauty, man provides significance. And it is significance that draws the greatest number of guests in our organization. It is significance that makes the USS Arizona Memorial more than just a sunken vessel, the Camino de Santiago worth the rigorous hike, and a night in Mackinac’s Grand Hotel more than just a place to sleep. 
Yes, experiential travel occurs when we give people access to interact fully with the places and things that are significant to them. And the contributions of humankind are what made those places and things significant.
Which leads me to ourselves. This year our world, our nation, and specifically here at Corporate Travel, our company has weathered withering trials. The litany of threats, challenges, and assaults to our company has been continuous, destructive, and overwhelming. But as people in ages past have used creativity, persistence, and sacrifice to overcome the challenges and achievements of their day, so too have the people in our company tendered relevance to the struggles of this day. Presently, our team celebrates the arrival of promising vaccines. We anticipate with great joy the return of our peers who are sacrificing through an unavoidable but temporary furlough. We also welcome calls from loyal and supportive friends and clients who are now wisely capturing the opportunity to plan new travel experiences in a world that is about to emerge from its own confinement. As I consider all our team has and continues to endure and how we are prevailing, my mind goes to the amazing people in our midst who have fought, sacrificed, and wept to achieve something amazing in the face of this year’s adversity. I offer this article to them. I marvel at the incredible people who have lent relevance to what they have created and defended in this daunting time. Our organization is merely a thing. Our office is just a place. But they are made significant by the people who have worked here.
It’s always about the people.
getting to know my children better as they grow and learn in this crazy time. I have slowed down my professional schedule (some by choice, some not by choice) that has allowed me to focus on what I really want to accomplish in the “back 9” of my career. And I have had plenty of time (sometimes too much…) to think, read, and learn about myself.
And on the flip side, I enjoy looking forward to big occasions which often help me get through busy and tough weeks. One future event in which I am greatly anticipating is the Let Music Live Festival occurring in June 2022. Rescheduled and rebranded due to COVID-19, this premier festival will feature performances in beautiful Dvorak Hall at the Rudolfinum in Prague, and the historical Musikverein in Vienna. Repertoire will include Dvorak: Te Deum (performing Dvorak IN DVORAK HALL…can it get much better? Well…), movements of Brahms: Requiem (in VIENNA!), an American work, Joseph Martin’s The Awakening (its text providing us with our festival title), and another work TBA.
Our health is our greatest gift. We are reminded of this by people in our lives far beyond the exam room of our physician’s office. Family and friends who know us best and love us most remind us of this basic fact of life. Undoubtedly, we have all heard, “Well, at least we have our heath” when sharing with a neighbor our common challenges in life. Phone calls with old friends invariably include, “So how are you? Everybody healthy?” in the first 60 seconds of the conversation. We take our one-a-day vitamins religiously. We exercise, choose meals carefully, and eat responsibly (most of the time!…). Our health is, in a word, everything.
What we find so enlightening as we continue our voyage through these uncharted waters is our evolving interpretation of a simple term like “health”. There existed, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, a singular interpretation for many: avoid contracting COVID-19 at all costs! With an unknown, unstudied, and aggressive threat, this strident reaction, we might argue, was prudent. Increasingly greater numbers of us now are taking a more comprehensive, and we can argue more, well, “healthy”, approach to protecting our gift of health. As we learn more about the virus as a society, we also are learning more about ourselves as individuals. We are learning that mental health – never independent of physical health – deserves equal protection.
My 82-year old father and my 73-year old mother wouldn’t have it any other way. After the slight easing of draconian lock-down measures in Honduras, my parents booked the first flight they could to the USA. Don’t get me wrong, they love Honduras. But it was time – high time – for them to experience freedom. And, the freedom they seek is not freedom FROM these draconian measures, but freedom FOR living! Are they concerned about contracting COVID? Certainly. While they are careful and mask up everywhere they go, they simply needed to connect with others. They experience great joy in being with others, with going to Church, with going out to eat.
instituted weekly Zoom meetings to help connect with people living throughout North and Central America. However, audio and video are simply not the same as actual presence. It’s akin to replacing all food and drink with calorically-free alternatives: after a while, you starve! Technology may hit the spot for near-term needs, but it simply cannot replace our fundamental need to be physically present.
President Donald Trump, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and my home state’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer are just three of many American leaders who have likened the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic to World War Two. While such a comparison can be both scrutinized and politicized, I would for my part respond this way: If the pandemic is like World War Two, then this past weekend’s uber-successful pilgrimage through Michigan, Indiana and upper Wisconsin is the Doolittle Raid.
Our company produces hundreds of group tours for tens of thousands of travelers each year. Any normal ‘day in the life’ at Corporate Travel Service is a bustling flurry of excitement and activity as multiple concurrent events are produced for bus load upon bus load of eager travelers. We franticly and passionately serve sorties of tourists who depart with complex and delicate itineraries. But all of that changed abruptly with the arrival of Covid-19. Like the Americans reading headlines after the attack on Pearl Harbor, our employees and our clients were left shell-shocked as the world was abruptly locked down. Years of work and preparation were franticly undone, as every single tour from March 10, 2020 forward was forced to cancel. The deluge of terrifying headlines accommodated no visible horizon for when group travel might return, and our industry atrophied under the unrelenting confusion and uncertainty of a frightened, paralyzed world. 
That is, until a few days ago, when on a warm sunlit Autumn morning, 30 Catholic pilgrims entrusted our organization and our amazing partner suppliers with their health and safety and departed on a 3-day, 1,100 mile jaunt through Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. These travelers marveled at peak Fall colors enroute to serene National Shrines like the Shrine of St. Joseph at St. Norbert’s College and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin. They enjoyed delicious group meals before touring iconic American institutions like Cross in the Woods and the University of Notre Dame. They attended Mass and listened to live presentations from prolific Catholic authors. Under the prayerful direction of our dear friend and Catholic Radio Host Teresa Tomeo, her husband Deacon Dominick Pastore, and our Spiritual Director Fr. Derik Peterman, this intrepid group of people visited historic, natural and religious sites that will, as all travel does, affect them forever. They prayed. They learned. They traveled. 
