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The journey trade has a singular capability to interrupt down boundaries, convey individuals collectively, and create alternatives for development and discovery. Traveling shouldn’t be a privilege or luxurious, however one thing that everybody ought to have entry to. Atlas goals to make journey extra accessible and reasonably priced by connecting journey sellers with low-cost airways worldwide by superior expertise.
In dialog with the IWTA Committee, Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas shares extra about her transformative journey by journey. Going forward from robust Covid instances to construct an inclusive journey expertise firm, that units trade benchmarks and paces up a proactive staff.
Q. How did you get began within the journey trade? And why the journey trade?
A. I didn’t have a traditional journey into the journey trade. It was a path I found later in life, but it surely has been extremely rewarding. After spending practically, a decade caring for my daughter, I re-entered the workforce in my mid-30s with a China-based journey company, Wingon Travel.
Despite having no prior expertise in journey, I noticed this as a possibility to be taught. I used to be intrigued by the journey trade due to its complexity and the numerous position it performs in connecting individuals worldwide.
As I grew older, I spotted the transformative affect that journey can have. The journey trade has a singular capability to interrupt down boundaries, convey individuals collectively, and create alternatives for development and discovery. It opens minds, broadens views, and fosters empathy and understanding throughout cultures.
For me, the journey trade isn’t nearly enterprise, or my profession; it’s about function and a technique to make a constructive distinction on the earth. It’s about utilizing my abilities and experience to make journey extra accessible and inclusive for everybody.
“My mom sells plane tickets.” From elementary faculty to highschool, my daughter would proudly introduce me to her pals like this. In her eyes, I used to be doing probably the most worthwhile job, one which helped many individuals see the world. Whether it was in an outdated home serving as an workplace area, a cubicle in a business constructing, or the high-tech Alibaba campus in Hangzhou, it didn’t matter.
So, why the journey trade? Because I imagine in its energy to alter lives, and I’m dedicated to being part of that change.
Q. Can you share a big second out of your private journey that impressed your ardour for journey?
A. As a toddler rising up in China within the Seventies, the thought of journey was a international idea to me. However, books like Jane Eyre and The Thorn Birds opened my eyes to the world exterior of my hometown. I used to be fascinated by the huge and thrilling world that lay past my attain and longed for the chance to discover it for myself. My first experiences of journey have been on group bus excursions that took me to numerous purchasing facilities throughout Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. Although this may increasingly not seem to be probably the most thrilling technique to journey, to me, all the things was new, unique, and thrilling and I loved each second.
Years have handed since these early travels, and I’ve visited numerous locations and met many individuals alongside the way in which. Yet, I’m nonetheless in love with journey and its magical energy to alter individuals’s lives.
My eldest sister, Ying, retired a number of years in the past after her husband handed away. During one among my visits house, she advised me that she had set a objective to journey to 100 international locations in her lifetime. Despite having a retirement wage of solely $700 per thirty days and not understanding any English, she has managed to go to over 40 international locations thus far. I’m all the time moved by her smile and her pleasure for her subsequent journey each time I am going house. She plans her price range fastidiously and goes on a bunch tour each 2-3 months to tick extra international locations off her listing. Her newest journey took her to Europe, the place she visited six international locations in a single go.
Her instance jogs my memory that touring shouldn’t be a privilege or luxurious, however one thing that everybody ought to have entry to. It offers me the motivation to go to work each single day.
Q. Can you share a difficult mission you undertook in your journey profession and the way you overcame it?
A. The most difficult mission is all the time the one I’m engaged on proper now. Today, it’s to construct a worldwide, inclusive journey expertise firm that solves trade puzzles and makes individuals really feel enthusiastic about coming to work on daily basis.
Moving to Singapore to launch Atlas was a daring resolution, looking back. I stepped removed from my consolation zone and started from scratch, slowly constructing my staff and clarifying our imaginative and prescient for the corporate. We launched Atlas in September 2019, just some months earlier than the worldwide journey trade got here to a halt and airplanes have been grounded attributable to Covid 19. But every hurdle has pushed us to develop and adapt in distinctive methods. For instance, the pandemic gave us time to concentrate on constructing a stable, scalable expertise platform that grew to become the inspiration of what we provide now.
One of the most important challenges thus far was to pursue our imaginative and prescient of connecting the world in a real, real approach. We know that to construct a very international enterprise that brings worth to everybody on the earth, we must always begin from the within out – with our staff.
Our staff is made up of individuals from totally different international locations with numerous backgrounds and languages. We purpose to create a ‘ONE TEAM culture’ the place everybody can thrive and be themselves with out being compelled to evolve to any explicit approach of doing issues.
Building a very multicultural staff and merging totally different cultures isn’t straightforward. It takes dedication, persistence and respect to use this strategy to apply. Doing this properly requires deep perception into the cultures, traditions and mindsets of various individuals and locations. Like each group that ever tried it, we face challenges – distant working limitations, cultural misunderstandings and assumptions, and language boundaries.
And it’s mutual belief that paves the way in which for understanding and openness. We attempt to create an atmosphere the place everybody has a voice and feels comfortable talking up. After all, innovation solely thrives in a tradition of range and inclusion, and we are able to’t remedy some large trade issues with out each one among us having a voice.
Q. How has working in journey or a profession in journey broadened your understanding of various cultures and traditions?
A. In twenty years within the journey trade, I’ve despatched myself around the globe numerous instances. During these journeys, I skilled many fantastic and touching moments that made me perceive and respect the similarities and variations all of us share.
My most particular expertise of touring was once I went on a two-year solo journey journey, after leaving a high-profile position at Alibaba Group.
This expertise opened my eyes to the sweetness and range of our world. It taught me to understand totally different cultures, traditions, and views. I explored locations like Tibet, Japan, Israel, Kenya, and numerous elements of the US and Europe, but it surely was within the soul of India’s bustling chaos that I discovered one thing really particular.
Despite the stark contrasts of wealth and poverty in India, there’s an amazing sense of freedom and pleasure. During my time in India, I immersed myself in its numerous cultures, traditions, and religions. I met unimaginable individuals from totally different walks of life, every with their very own distinctive tales. What struck me probably the most was the power and resilience of the Indian individuals, and the boundless love and acceptance they shared with me.
I then spent two years working in India. I used to be a co-CEO of Mystifly, a journey expertise firm with an excellent staff. They confirmed me much more colours and scents of India. When individuals ask me how I survived in India, I all the time encourage individuals to go there and expertise it firsthand. I not solely survived, however I additionally cherished India.
It’s exceptional how journey serves as a bridge, connecting individuals and fostering cross-cultural understanding. It was in India that I spotted I may flip my strengths and abilities right into a purpose-led enterprise. I may use it to assist open journey to extra individuals internationally.
Q. Can you share the story behind beginning your personal travel-related enterprise or mission?
A. With two profitable companies underneath my belt, Atlas is my third journey start-up. Every time, I used to be pushed by a powerful perception that I may discover options to systemic inefficiencies I noticed round me.
My first expertise in journey was with Wingon Travel, a standard offline journey company. During my time there, I witnessed firsthand all the problems with reserving flights for our clients. It required a very difficult and principally handbook course of, and I noticed the potential to make use of expertise to handle these challenges. It impressed me to launch Aslan, a data-processing firm, that shortly grew to become the most important B2B air ticketing platform in China. In 2014, Aslan was acquired by Alitrip, now Fliggy, the place I stayed for 2 years as Head of Air Tickets.
Later, in 2019, I launched Atlas, one other journey tech firm. I began it as a result of I wished to resolve points with distributing air content material from low-cost carriers. While these airways have been taking extra and extra share of the aviation market, journey brokers couldn’t entry their knowledge in a cohesive, seamless method.
Atlas goals to make journey extra accessible and reasonably priced by connecting journey sellers with low-cost airways worldwide by superior expertise, and we selected this identify for a motive.
At the top of June 2019, my daughter Xinyu and I visited the National Gallery in Singapore and explored the exhibition “Between Declarations and Dreams”. One room displayed maps drawn to satisfy the wants of colonizers as Portugal and the Netherlands invaded and colonized Southeast Asia beginning within the sixteenth century. Due to totally different eras and mapmakers, the identical geographical location may very well be depicted in a different way on numerous maps. These differentiated maps have been compiled into atlases. Before this expertise, I hadn’t thought deeply about it. It appeared that the outcomes from Google or different engines like google have been the one solutions, presenting an oblong airplane or a 3D scene earlier than me.
Staring on the yellowed rolls of maps behind the glass cupboard and evaluating the variations in the identical location on totally different maps was fascinating. Perhaps if I have been to attract them at this time, the end result could be totally different. Even when confronted with the identical surroundings, the reminiscences left in every individual’s thoughts could be totally different. Traveling permits us to create our distinctive atlases.
Q. If you would be something on the earth or do any position, what wouldn’t it be?
A. I’m already doing what I imagine is the perfect job on the earth. I’ve by no means loved my life greater than I do now, even with the stress and challenges that come with constructing an organization.
My mission is to assist convey extra acceptance and inclusion on the earth by the ability of journey, and with Atlas, we’re making journey extra accessible and reasonably priced. Everything we do is aligned with our values, and I stay on daily basis understanding that I do one thing significant and impactful. Building a purpose-led enterprise shouldn’t be straightforward, however when you’re clear about your objectives and imaginative and prescient, it makes it easy and rather more gratifying!
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