The journey business has a novel skill to interrupt down obstacles, convey individuals collectively, and create alternatives for progress 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 means of superior expertise.
In dialog with the IWTA Committee, Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas shares extra about her transformative journey by means of journey. Going forward from powerful Covid occasions to construct an inclusive journey expertise firm, that units business benchmarks and paces up a proactive workforce.
Q. How did you get began within the journey business? And why the journey business?
A. I didn’t have a traditional journey into the journey business. It was a path I found later in life, however it has been extremely rewarding. After spending almost, 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 chance to be taught. I used to be intrigued by the journey business due to its complexity and the numerous function it performs in connecting individuals worldwide.
As I grew older, I noticed the transformative affect that journey can have. The journey business has a novel skill to interrupt down obstacles, convey individuals collectively, and create alternatives for progress and discovery. It opens minds, broadens views, and fosters empathy and understanding throughout cultures.
For me, the journey business isn’t nearly enterprise, or my profession; it’s about function and a solution to make a optimistic distinction on this planet. It’s about utilizing my abilities and experience to make journey extra accessible and inclusive for everybody.
“My mom sells plane tickets.” From elementary college to highschool, my daughter would proudly introduce me to her buddies like this. In her eyes, I used to be doing probably the most useful 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 Whether it was in an outdated home serving as an workplace area, a cubicle in a industrial constructing, or the high-tech Alibaba campus in Hangzhou, it didn’t matter.
So, why the journey business? Because I consider in its energy to alter lives, and I’m dedicated to being part of that change.
Q. Can you share a major second out of your private journey that impressed your ardour for journey?
A. As a toddler rising up in China within the Nineteen Seventies, the thought of journey was a overseas idea to me. However, books like Jane Eyre and The Thorn Birds opened my eyes to the world outdoors 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 had been on group bus excursions that took me to varied procuring facilities throughout Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. Although this will likely not look like probably the most thrilling solution 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 best way. 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 considered one of my visits dwelling, she informed me that she had set a aim to journey to 100 international locations in her lifetime. Despite having a retirement wage of solely $700 monthly and not understanding any English, she has managed to go to over 40 international locations to date. I’m all the time moved by her smile and her pleasure for her subsequent journey each time I’m going dwelling. She plans her funds fastidiously and goes on a gaggle tour each 2-3 months to tick extra international locations off her record. 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 world, inclusive journey expertise firm that solves business puzzles and makes individuals really feel enthusiastic about coming to work day-after-day.
Moving to Singapore to launch Atlas was a daring choice, looking back. I stepped removed from my consolation zone and started from scratch, slowly constructing my workforce and clarifying our imaginative and prescient for the corporate. We launched Atlas in September 2019, just some months earlier than the worldwide journey business got here to a halt and airplanes had been grounded as a consequence of Covid 19. But every hurdle has pushed us to develop and adapt in distinctive methods. For instance, the pandemic gave us time to deal with constructing a strong, scalable expertise platform that turned the inspiration of what we provide now.
One of the most important challenges to date was to pursue our imaginative and prescient of connecting the world in a real, real means. We know that to construct a really world enterprise that brings worth to everybody on this planet, we must always begin from the within out – with our workforce.
Our workforce 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 pressured to evolve to any explicit means of doing issues.
Building a really multicultural workforce and merging totally different cultures isn’t straightforward. It takes dedication, endurance 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 obstacles.
And it’s mutual belief that paves the best way for understanding and openness. We try to create an atmosphere the place everybody has a voice and feels comfortable talking up. After all, innovation solely thrives in a tradition of variety and inclusion, and we will’t resolve some large business issues with out each considered one of 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 business, I’ve despatched myself around the globe numerous occasions. During these journeys, I skilled many great and touching moments that made me perceive and respect the similarities and variations all of us share.
My most particular expertise of touring was after I went on a two-year solo journey journey, after leaving a high-profile function at Alibaba Group.
This expertise opened my eyes to the sweetness and variety 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, however it was within the soul of India’s bustling chaos that I discovered one thing actually particular.
Despite the stark contrasts of wealth and poverty in India, there may be an awesome sense of freedom and pleasure. During my time in India, I immersed myself in its numerous cultures, traditions, and religions. I met unbelievable individuals from totally different walks of life, every with their very own distinctive tales. What struck me probably the most was the energy 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 a fantastic workforce. 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 noticed I might flip my strengths and abilities right into a purpose-led enterprise. I might 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 might discover options to systemic inefficiencies I noticed round me.
My first expertise in journey was with Wingon Travel, a conventional offline journey company. During my time there, I witnessed firsthand all the problems with reserving flights for our clients. It required an excessively sophisticated and principally handbook course of, and I noticed the potential to make use of expertise to deal with these challenges. It impressed me to launch Aslan, a data-processing firm, that rapidly turned 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 needed to resolve points with distributing air content material from low-cost carriers. While these airways had 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 means of superior expertise, and we selected this title for a purpose.
At the tip 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 could possibly be depicted otherwise on numerous maps. These differentiated maps had been compiled into atlases. Before this expertise, I hadn’t thought deeply about it. It appeared that the outcomes from Google or different search engines like google had been the one solutions, presenting an oblong aircraft 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 had been to attract them right now, the end result could be totally different. Even when confronted with the identical surroundings, the recollections 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 this planet or do any function, what wouldn’t it be?
A. I’m already doing what I consider is one of the best job on this planet. 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 this planet by means of the facility 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 day-after-day understanding that I do one thing significant and impactful. Building a purpose-led enterprise isn’t straightforward, however if you find yourself clear about your objectives and imaginative and prescient, it makes it easy and rather more pleasant!
