IWTA speaks with Mary Li, Founder and CEO, Atlas

The journey trade has a singular means to interrupt down limitations, deliver 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 reasonably priced 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 instances to construct an inclusive journey know-how firm, that units trade benchmarks and paces up a proactive group.

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, 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 Journey.

Regardless of having no prior expertise in journey, I noticed this as a possibility to study. I used to be intrigued by the journey trade due to its complexity and the numerous position 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, 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 trade isn’t nearly enterprise, or my profession; it’s about function and a approach to make a optimistic distinction on the earth. It’s about utilizing my expertise 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 pals like this. In her eyes, I used to be doing probably the most priceless job, one which helped many individuals see the world. Whether or not it was in an previous 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? As a result of I consider in its energy to vary 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 toddler rising up in China within the Nineteen Seventies, the thought of journey was a international 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 have been on group bus excursions that took me to varied buying facilities throughout Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. Though this may occasionally not seem to be probably the most thrilling approach to journey, to me, every part 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 vary folks’s lives.

My eldest sister, Ying, retired a number of years in the past after her husband handed away. Throughout one in all my visits dwelling, she instructed me that she had set a aim to journey to 100 nations in her lifetime. Regardless of having a retirement wage of solely $700 monthly and never realizing any English, she has managed to go to over 40 nations thus far. 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 nations off her checklist. 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 all the time the one I’m engaged on proper now. At present, it’s to construct a worldwide, inclusive journey know-how firm that solves trade puzzles and makes folks really feel enthusiastic about coming to work day-after-day.

Transferring 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 group and clarifying our imaginative and prescient for the corporate. We launched Atlas in September 2019, only a few months earlier than the worldwide journey trade got here to a halt and airplanes have been grounded resulting from 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 inspiration of what we provide now.

One of many largest challenges thus far was to pursue our imaginative and prescient of connecting the world in a real, real method. We all know that to construct a really international enterprise that brings worth to everybody on the earth, we must always begin from the within out – with our group.

Our group is made up of individuals from totally different nations with various backgrounds and languages. We intention to create a ‘ONE TEAM tradition’ the place everybody can thrive and be themselves with out being pressured to adapt to any explicit method of doing issues.

Constructing a really multicultural group and merging totally different cultures isn’t straightforward. It takes dedication, endurance and respect to use this method to follow. Doing this effectively 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 relaxed talking up. In any case, innovation solely thrives in a tradition of variety and inclusion, and we will’t clear up some large trade issues with out each one in all 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 all over the world numerous instances. Throughout 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 position at Alibaba Group.

This expertise opened my eyes to the wonder 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 really particular.

Regardless of the stark contrasts of wealth and poverty in India, there may be an awesome sense of freedom and pleasure. Throughout 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 probably the most was the power 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 a terrific group. They confirmed me much more colours and smells of India. When folks ask me how I survived in India, I all the time encourage folks to go there and expertise it firsthand. I not solely survived, however I additionally beloved India.

It’s outstanding how journey serves as a bridge, connecting folks and fostering cross-cultural understanding. It was in India that I noticed I might flip my strengths and expertise right into a purpose-led enterprise. I might 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 beneath my belt, Atlas is my third journey start-up. Each 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 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 sophisticated and principally handbook course of, and I noticed the potential to make use of know-how 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 unravel points with distributing air content material from low-cost carriers. Whereas these airways have 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 reasonably priced by connecting journey sellers with low-cost airways worldwide by superior know-how, and we selected this identify for a purpose.

On the finish of June 2019, my daughter Xinyu and I visited the Nationwide Gallery in Singapore and explored the exhibition “Between Declarations and Desires”. 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. Because of totally different eras and mapmakers, the identical geographical location may very well be depicted otherwise on numerous maps. These differentiated maps have been compiled into atlases. Earlier than this expertise, I hadn’t thought deeply about it. It appeared that the outcomes from Google or different search engines like google have 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. Maybe if I have been to attract them as we speak, the consequence could be totally different. Even when confronted with the identical surroundings, the reminiscences left in every individual’s thoughts could be totally different. Touring permits us to create our distinctive atlases.

Q. Should you may very well be something on the earth or do any position, what would it not be?

A. I’m already doing what I consider is one of the best job on the earth. 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 deliver extra acceptance and inclusion on the earth by the facility of journey, and with Atlas, we’re making journey extra accessible and reasonably priced. The whole lot we do is aligned with our values, and I stay day-after-day realizing that I do one thing significant and impactful. Constructing a purpose-led enterprise just isn’t straightforward, however when you’re clear about your objectives and imaginative and prescient, it makes it easy and rather more satisfying!