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The journey business has a singular skill to interrupt down boundaries, deliver folks 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 way of superior know-how.
In dialog with the IWTA Committee, Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas shares extra about her transformative journey by way of journey. Going forward from robust Covid occasions to construct an inclusive journey know-how firm, that units business benchmarks and paces up a proactive crew.
Q. How did you get began within the journey business? And why the journey business?
A. I didn’t have a standard journey into the journey business. It was a path I found later in life, however it 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 chance to study. I used to be intrigued by the journey business due to its complexity and the numerous position it performs in connecting folks worldwide.
As I grew older, I spotted the transformative impression that journey can have. The journey business has a singular skill to interrupt down boundaries, deliver folks collectively, and create alternatives for development 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 objective and a approach to make a optimistic 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 mates like this. In her eyes, I used to be doing essentially the most useful job, one which helped many individuals see the world. Whether it was in an previous 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 imagine in its energy to vary 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 Seventies, the concept 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 have been on group bus excursions that took me to varied buying facilities throughout Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. Although this will likely not seem to be essentially the most thrilling approach to journey, to me, every little thing 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 vary folks’s lives.
My eldest sister, Ying, retired a number of years in the past after her husband handed away. During certainly one of my visits dwelling, she informed me that she had set a aim to journey to 100 nations in her lifetime. Despite having a retirement wage of solely $700 per thirty days and not figuring out any English, she has managed to go to over 40 nations to date. I’m at all times moved by her smile and her pleasure for her subsequent journey each time I am going dwelling. She plans her funds rigorously and goes on a bunch tour each 2-3 months to tick extra nations off her record. Her newest journey took her to Europe, the place she visited six nations 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 provides me the motivation to go to work each single day.
Q. Can you share a difficult challenge you undertook in your journey profession and the way you overcame it?
A. The most difficult challenge is at all times the one I’m engaged on proper now. Today, it’s to construct a worldwide, inclusive journey know-how firm that solves business puzzles and makes folks really feel enthusiastic about coming to work daily.
Moving to Singapore to launch Atlas was a daring determination, on reflection. I stepped removed from my consolation zone and started from scratch, slowly constructing my crew and clarifying our imaginative and prescient for the corporate. We launched Atlas in September 2019, only a few months earlier than the worldwide journey business got here to a halt and airplanes have been grounded as a result 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 stable, scalable know-how platform that grew to become the muse of what we provide now.
One of the largest 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 very international enterprise that brings worth to everybody on the earth, we should always begin from the within out – with our crew.
Our crew is made up of individuals from totally different nations with various backgrounds and languages. We goal to create a ‘ONE TEAM culture’ the place everybody can thrive and be themselves with out being compelled to adapt to any specific means of doing issues.
Building a very multicultural crew and merging totally different cultures isn’t straightforward. It takes dedication, persistence and respect to use this method to apply. Doing this properly requires deep perception into the cultures, traditions and mindsets of various folks 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 try to create an surroundings the place everybody has a voice and feels comfy talking up. After all, innovation solely thrives in a tradition of range and inclusion, and we will’t remedy some large business issues with out each certainly 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 all over the world numerous occasions. 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 varied elements of the US and Europe, however it 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 awesome sense of freedom and pleasure. During my time in India, I immersed myself in its various cultures, traditions, and religions. I met unimaginable folks from totally different walks of life, every with their very own distinctive tales. What struck me essentially the most was the energy and resilience of the Indian folks, 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 know-how firm with an incredible crew. They confirmed me much more colours and scents of India. When folks ask me how I survived in India, I at all times encourage folks to go there and expertise it firsthand. I not solely survived, however I additionally liked India.
It’s exceptional how journey serves as a bridge, connecting folks 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 folks the world over.
Q. Can you share the story behind beginning your individual travel-related enterprise or challenge?
A. With two profitable companies below my belt, Atlas is my third journey start-up. Every time, I used to be pushed by a robust perception that I may 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 a very sophisticated and principally handbook course of, and I noticed the potential to make use of know-how to deal with 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 information 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 way of superior know-how, and we selected this title for a purpose.
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 might be depicted in another way on varied 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 search engines like google and yahoo 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 the moment, the consequence can be totally different. Even when confronted with the identical surroundings, the recollections left in every particular person’s thoughts can be totally different. Traveling permits us to create our distinctive atlases.
Q. If you could possibly be something on the earth or do any position, what would it not be?
A. I’m already doing what I imagine is the most effective 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 deliver extra acceptance and inclusion on the earth by way 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 dwell daily figuring out 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 way more pleasurable!
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