IWTA speaks with Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas

The journey trade has a singular means to interrupt down limitations, convey folks collectively, and create alternatives for development and discovery. Touring 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 inexpensive by connecting journey sellers with low-cost airways worldwide by superior know-how.

In dialog with the IWTA Committee, Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas shares extra about her transformative journey by journey. Going forward from powerful Covid occasions to construct an inclusive journey know-how firm, that units trade benchmarks and paces up a proactive workforce.

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, nevertheless 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 Journey.

Regardless of having no prior expertise in journey, I noticed this as a chance to be taught. I used to be intrigued by the journey trade due to its complexity and the numerous function it performs in connecting folks worldwide.

As I grew older, I noticed the transformative impression that journey can have. The journey trade has a singular means to interrupt down limitations, convey 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 trade isn’t nearly enterprise, or my profession; it’s about function and a approach 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 mother sells aircraft tickets.” From elementary faculty to highschool, my daughter would proudly introduce me to her buddies like this. In her eyes, I used to be doing essentially the most worthwhile job, one which helped many individuals see the world. Whether or not it was in an previous home serving as an workplace house, a cubicle in a business constructing, or the high-tech Alibaba campus in Hangzhou, it didn’t matter.

So, why the journey trade? As a result of I imagine in its energy to alter lives, and I’m dedicated to being part of that change.

Q. Are you able to share a major second out of your private journey that impressed your ardour for journey?

A. As a baby rising up in China within the Seventies, the thought of journey was a overseas idea to me. Nonetheless, 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 had been on group bus excursions that took me to varied purchasing facilities throughout Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. Though this may occasionally 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. But, I’m nonetheless in love with journey and its magical energy to alter folks’s lives.

My eldest sister, Ying, retired a number of years in the past after her husband handed away. Throughout certainly one of my visits house, she informed me that she had set a aim to journey to 100 nations in her lifetime. Regardless of having a retirement wage of solely $700 per 30 days and never 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’m going house. She plans her funds fastidiously and goes on a gaggle 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 offers me the motivation to go to work each single day.

Q. Are you able to share a difficult mission you undertook in your journey profession and the way you overcame it?

A. Probably the most difficult mission is at all times the one I’m engaged on proper now. Immediately, it’s to construct a world, inclusive journey know-how firm that solves trade puzzles and makes folks really feel enthusiastic about coming to work every single day.

Shifting to Singapore to launch Atlas was a daring choice, looking back. I stepped removed from my consolation zone and commenced 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 trade got here to a halt and airplanes had been grounded as a result of Covid 19. However every hurdle has pushed us to develop and adapt in distinctive methods. For instance, the pandemic gave us time to concentrate on constructing a strong, scalable know-how platform that grew to become the muse of what we provide now.

One of many largest challenges to date was to pursue our imaginative and prescient of connecting the world in a real, real approach. We all know that to construct a very world enterprise that brings worth to everybody on this planet, we should always begin from the within out – with our workforce.

Our workforce is made up of individuals from completely different nations with numerous backgrounds and languages. We intention to create a ‘ONE TEAM tradition’ the place everybody can thrive and be themselves with out being pressured to evolve to any explicit approach of doing issues.

Constructing a very multicultural workforce and merging completely different cultures isn’t straightforward. It takes dedication, endurance and respect to use this strategy to observe. 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 limitations.

And it’s mutual belief that paves the way in which for understanding and openness. We try to create an setting the place everybody has a voice and feels comfy talking up. In spite of everything, innovation solely thrives in a tradition of range and inclusion, and we are able to’t clear up some huge trade 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 trade, I’ve despatched myself around the globe numerous occasions. Throughout 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 function at Alibaba Group.

This expertise opened my eyes to the wonder and variety of our world. It taught me to understand completely different cultures, traditions, and views. I explored locations like Tibet, Japan, Israel, Kenya, and numerous components of the US and Europe, nevertheless it was within the soul of India’s bustling chaos that I discovered one thing actually particular.

Regardless of the stark contrasts of wealth and poverty in India, there’s an amazing sense of freedom and pleasure. Throughout my time in India, I immersed myself in its numerous cultures, traditions, and religions. I met unimaginable folks from completely 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 amazing workforce. They confirmed me much more colours and smells 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 noticed 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. Are you able to share the story behind beginning your personal travel-related enterprise or mission?

A. With two profitable companies below my belt, Atlas is my third journey start-up. Each 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 Journey, a conventional offline journey company. Throughout my time there, I witnessed firsthand all the problems with reserving flights for our prospects. It required an excessively difficult and largely 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 unravel points with distributing air content material from low-cost carriers. Whereas these airways had been taking increasingly 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 inexpensive by connecting journey sellers with low-cost airways worldwide by superior know-how, and we selected this title for a cause.

On the finish of June 2019, my daughter Xinyu and I visited the Nationwide Gallery in Singapore and explored the exhibition “Between Declarations and Goals”. 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. Attributable to completely different eras and mapmakers, the identical geographical location could possibly be depicted in a different way on numerous maps. These differentiated maps had been compiled into atlases. Earlier than this expertise, I hadn’t thought deeply about it. It appeared that the outcomes from Google or different serps 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 completely different maps was fascinating. Maybe if I had been to attract them at the moment, the consequence could be completely different. Even when confronted with the identical surroundings, the recollections left in every particular person’s thoughts could be completely different. Touring permits us to create our distinctive atlases.

Q. In case you could possibly be something on this planet or do any function, what wouldn’t it be?

A. I’m already doing what I imagine 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 include constructing an organization.

My mission is to assist convey extra acceptance and inclusion on this planet by the facility of journey, and with Atlas, we’re making journey extra accessible and inexpensive. Every thing we do is aligned with our values, and I reside every single day figuring out that I do one thing significant and impactful. Constructing a purpose-led enterprise isn’t straightforward, however when you find yourself clear about your targets and imaginative and prescient, it makes it easy and far more fulfilling!