After years of leading successful trips to Germany as a volunteer, the author of our story and our founder, Mike Malone, recognized his need to learn the difference between sharing a passion as a volunteer and building a successful business. Mike took the necessary steps to learn from experience. In late 2019, MCE announced multiple trips to Germany embarking in 2020 featuring the world famous Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany.
Our story beyond 2020 could hardly have looked more bright or more promising. The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown the economy around the world with devastating global consequences for the travel and tourism industry. The Passion Play in Oberammergau, which has been presented every 10 years since 1634, was postponed for the first time in more than 100 years.
The harsh reality of an unprecedented worldwide economic shutdown and the ravages of COVID-19 have been devastating to millions of people around the world. Feelings that come with the potential loss of years of hard work and financial investment combined with the added weight that the hopes, dreams and trust of fellow travelers so looking forward to their trip of a lifetime were nearly unbearable. As the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, reminds us–No feeling is final.
In the face of COVID-19, Mike committed to ensuring no fellow traveler would lose a single dollar of value invested in journeys with us. Through a combination of solutions that included issuing refunds and looking forward to traveling to Germany with fellow travelers looking forward to witnessing the Passion Play in 2022, MCE is positioned to emerge even stronger than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Our story continues.
The author of our story, our founder holds degrees from Valparaiso University, a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago and is currently working to complete his PhD in early modern European history at Saint Louis University. Mike has presented academic papers at several international academic conferences, has delivered public lectures and was a featured speaker at a National Week of Prayer Service with St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson presiding. He as also developed and taught Quality Matters Certified university courses in world history, African history and civilization and U.S.
History as well as developed and led several seminars on a variety of historical, cultural and religious topics. Mike Malone, lives to empower others in sharing their stories.
We invite you to get in touch for a conversation about experiencing a journey that tells a story.
We invite you to share your travel dreams with us.
Among the most amazing attributes of the tourism and travel is just how professional and authentically nice people are in this industry. We are always engaged with other professionals; we belong to a select group of associations. We go to conferences and seminars. We participate in education programs. We never stop learning for our own benefit, sure, but ultimately for the purpose of serving our fellow travelers. Here are just a few of the ways we live out our mission in our own quest for lifelong learning.
We are constantly looking for ideas and trends. One example is that some destinations suffer from over-tourism. Sure, there are destinations that tourists like to check off their box and say they visited. Sometimes, there are destinations that are just as interesting; sometimes even more so. We are continually looking for ideas and trends in tourism and travel with you in mind.
Of course, we never want to complete an incident report or take someone to the hospital while they are on a journey with us. Life happens. Now, as we look forward to traveling post-COVID, we continue to learn in order to help you travel safely. We regularly engage in learning about the latest travel risk and mitigation.
Among the benefits of actively participating in industry groups and associations is the access we maintain to the latest in tourism and travel research. We monitor the latest research for ideas and trends as well as the latest in risk mitigation and management. Our industry engagement is with both people and data.
