No matter how old you are, jumping around at the indoor trampoline park locations at TRAMPO is a magical experience. Everyone loves the momentary feeling of weightlessness, when gravity ceases to exist and you feel like you are flying. Kids and adults love the different games and areas where you can shoot hoops while you jump and even challenge your friends to balancing beam battles and dodgeball.
We spoke to Ghassan Assi, the Chief Operating Officer at TRAMPO to learn more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes on. “The reactions range from blank faces as in no idea what I am a talking about and these are unmistakably singles or parents with no kids or ‘yes we regularly take our kids to TRAMPO, our kids love it … ’ and even after so many occurrences, I still feel a sense of achievement that we are doing things right,” he explains. Parents, and their kids, love TRAMPO and they love them back. And us bazaarites love going as adults even without kids. And it seems that Ghassan does too, “On a personal level climbing is my favorite, it is an activity that I enjoy with my kids. Also, I appreciate prospecting and hunting for the next viral active play games and challenges.”
Ghassan’s career path is interesting; he holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in engineering, in addition to an MBA. He started working in the aerospace industry in Canada, more than thirty years ago, for several years before drifting into the telecom sector and eventually the infrastructure and leisure and entertainment at TRAMPO.
He loves how TRAMPO is a very agile and flat organization. It is a homegrown Kuwaiti success story that started from an idea in 2015 that is now in Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Oman serving millions of very loyal and happy clients. What sets it apart is the progressive corporate culture which is a reflection of the owners and leaders’ vision. “The employees make this company great; we value and recognize their contribution and engagement. The workforce is encouraged to innovate, participate, and share, they are trusted,” Ghassan tells us. He is very proud that his team took a homegrown concept to a multiple award-winning reality. He believes that with vision, dedication, and commitment the sky’s the limit.
We are slowly going back to our pre-pandemic lives, but COVID-19 hit the entertainment industry harder than most, and its effects are still going to be felt there for a while. Being an agile organization, TRAMPO’s response to the situation helped manage the situation and reflects their values and vision. “Early on we realized the risk of a prolonged disruption in our revenue streams, so we executed our crisis management plan with the objective to help our key people navigate these uncertain times, the ultimate goal being the post pandemic recovery. With participation of all the stakeholders, namely the employees, the owners, the banks, the landlords and the suppliers we were able to sail through these rough seas,” Ghassan says.
For example, TRAMPO had to quickly adapt and integrate new rules and regulations which is a challenge even in the most conventional circumstances, as it involves developing new procedures and training staff on them and trying to do it seamlessly without disturbing the client’s experience. “We were a bit rushed into it but eventually found our stability point. It should be said that many, if not most, of the new policies and procedures will stay with us well beyond the Covid-19 pandemic,” Ghassan explained.
He also told us that they would like to push for a fully paperless environment. “On the customer engagement side ideally, we can move to 100% online transactions thus reducing entry queues and substantially improving the clients’ experience. What Covid-19 did is underline the need to speed-up and leverage technology to reengineering and simplify business practices and processes,” he told us. This switch was initially introduced to reduce the number of physical objects being passed between people, but it is also a win for the environment. We hope more companies will take TRAMPO’s lead and follow in their footsteps.
Any child-related business means big responsibility, which Ghassan, TRAMPO and the entire team take very seriously. “On a personal level, I am involved in all the safety and security aspects and have been successfully pushing that agenda based on training, inspections, and certifications. We have so far been very successful in avoiding major accidents,” he explains. We know exactly what he means too. Every time we’ve been to TRAMPO we notice how the staff explain everything and reiterate safety instructions and are always in position to quickly manage situations before they arise.
TRAMPO is one of Kuwait’s most popular entertainment destinations. It is a perfect place to visit all year round, especially when the weather outside is too hot. And it offers an active and engaging experience for everyone and we hope to see more locations. “In the short to medium term, I would like to see TRAMPO expand in the remaining GCC markets and beyond it. The real challenge is testing the waters outside our regional comfort zone, maybe in the medium to long term time horizon,” Ghassan tells us. And we can’t wait for that to happen too.
Trampo Extreme has two locations in Kuwait: Murouj; off 6th Ring Road next to Sahara Golf Club and The Promenade Mall; Hawaly, Al-Othman Street, First Floor. They are also located at Oman, UAE & Qatar. Call them at 2225 5260 for more information and follow @trampoofficial on Instagram.
