Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector
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Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, not too long ago shared his insights with us on how corporations are leveraging revolutionary options to reshape buyer expectations and experiences.
Plifka, a distinguished insurance coverage skilled with 18 years of intensive expertise within the Asia-Pacific area, specialises in embedded insurance coverage options the place related insurance coverage covers will be provided alongside the enterprise companion’s core product inside their present buyer journey.
Beneath his management, Allianz Companions cemented its place as a number one insurance coverage supplier for revolutionary options to the automotive, journey/airline, retail, and monetary service industries in Hong Kong.
On the identical time, Plifka’s concentrate on constructing easy, digital insurance coverage packages and fostering a customer-centric tradition led to the creation of quite a few long-standing partnerships, making him and a key contributor to the corporate’s continued success.
As a choose on the TDM Journey Commerce Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, he delved into how journey suppliers can improve their choices by partnering with trade gamers and the way know-how developments remodeled the trade to create unique and localised experiences.
Along with your in depth expertise, may you elaborate on how revolutionary options form buyer experiences within the journey, leisure, and hospitality sectors?
Following the pandemic, we’re persevering with to see a digital transformation of journey and tourism, pushed by technological adjustments and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of as we speak need options and companies which can be only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.
Two key areas the place revolutionary options are taking part in a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey rigidity’, in the end bettering buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In the case of personalisation, it’s about synthetic intelligence (AI) and information analytics. For instance, offering airline or hospitality workers with visitor particulars and preferences at their fingertips in order that they’ll present options or affords primarily based on these distinctive wants.
Journey rigidity is what all travellers face all through their journey – from planning, researching, reserving, going and even when having fun with the journey itself. What we’ve witnessed is that, particularly after the pandemic, there’s quite a lot of uncertainty – from vacation spot option to unexpected circumstances like cancelled flights, misplaced baggage, and even well being emergencies while abroad. What travellers need is for journey suppliers to scale back this rigidity, and revolutionary instruments will be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions affords is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which gives journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.
In your opinion, what are probably the most important challenges at the moment going through corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they deal with these challenges successfully?
Shoppers of as we speak have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship on the spot gratification. This immediacy has led to better competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to concentrate on eliminating friction by means of know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally grow to be warier earlier than travelling with issues reminiscent of getting sick or caught in a rustic attributable to sudden lockdowns, including to journey rigidity. Trade gamers must ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller issues, journey suppliers can companion with ecosystem companions reminiscent of journey insurers, as the proper insurance policies can deal with a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by means of insurance policies that help shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances reminiscent of flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide prospects 24/7 help with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In the case of our product growth, prospects are on the centre of all the things we do, and we use their suggestions and the newest market information to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed observe document, how do you assume sturdy B2B2C partnerships contribute to the development and success of companies within the trade?
Partnerships throughout the journey ecosystem are key to making sure seamlessness, which travellers of as we speak are demanding. Trade gamers must work throughout silos in order that collectively we will help travellers have memorable experiences that may maintain them coming again. What’s essential is that manufacturers are leveraging partnerships which can be complementary to one another, the place they’ve like-minded approaches to innovation, and the place they’ll proceed to collaborate to seek out methods so as to add worth to the client.
As an trade, the extra we will do for travellers to make their lives simpler and supply options in a well timed method alongside the best way, the extra loyal they may grow to be. For instance, corporations that companion with journey insurance coverage suppliers to boost buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through the complete journey expertise, eliminating travel-related issues together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, reminiscent of flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In actual fact, our prospects have informed us that coupling journey insurance coverage with their core merchandise or choices resulted in higher conversions of their core product.
What position do you consider technological transformations play in influencing the journey trade?
Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many elements of the journey much more handy, reminiscent of empowering travellers to plan and e book their complete journeys from the consolation of their houses or on the go, managing flights, transport, lodging and itinerary choices.
This additionally makes communication extra on the spot, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nevertheless, that buyer help have to be extra available to are likely to world travellers who might have issues and are available from totally different time zones, as they may demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Know-how can even assist form the trade by serving to to bridge gaps by way of labour shortages and improve journey experiences. In a 2023 examine by Deloitte, half of the accommodations and 99 % of airport managers surveyed mentioned that they undertake new applied sciences to deal with workers shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 % of airport respondents and 57 % of lodge basic managers count on automation to spice up visitor experiences and in the end their backside traces. Fortuitously, instruments like AI will help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly prospects proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and better connectivity on-line, journey experiences grow to be a two-way avenue. Technological transformation has offered travellers with a voice to share overtly about their experiences for different shoppers to learn, so there’s much more transparency and openness internationally now. What’s crucial is that as phrases can unfold rapidly by way of platforms like social media, trade gamers should keep conscious of what prospects and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as rapidly on suggestions and issues.
Trying forward, what future traits in journey and hospitality do you assume will current the best alternatives for development and innovation?
Sustainability is more and more prime of thoughts for the journey trade, together with travellers who count on journey suppliers to deal with it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that supply eco-friendly options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas by way of Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers different choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, accommodations may concentrate on native produce to help surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious of the affect their actions have on the surroundings, the trade has alternatives to reply with options that meet shoppers’ eco-conscious wants.
Their selections are additionally fuelled by wanting genuine and distinctive experiences, pushed by post-pandemic attitudes. Travellers are more and more transferring away from typical tourism, looking for extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.
Round 49 % of world travellers search immersion in native cultures and merchandise, and so they need personalised experiences and actions. To fulfill this demand, journey suppliers can curate extra native experiences by means of collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, accommodations can companion with tour operators and nationwide parks to design unique packages.
With distant working right here to remain for the foreseeable future, one other alternative is focussing on digital nomads because the quantity is predicted to extend. These people journey freely and work remotely from internationally, seeing themselves extra as short-term residents than vacationers. Distant employees might not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they might carry their relations like their companions and youngsters. Hospitality gamers may have a look at digital nomad packages, which will be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these employees to unwind on their days off.
As a choose on the TDM Journey Commerce Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, what are the first standards you’ll use to guage the nominees?
A key criterion for me can be taking a look at how nominees need to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re capable of cut back journey rigidity go a great distance in bettering the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning friends. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts by means of their journey expertise in order that they’ll concentrate on having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and using know-how is one other space to contemplate, as know-how will current infinite alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of know-how making a distinction in tourism embrace prolonged actuality (XR) and AI getting used to create novel experiences, utilizing data-driven insights to handle crowd management and guarantee a optimistic customer expertise and utilizing digital twins to boost occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller issues, guaranteeing that they’ve a easy and optimistic expertise while on their journeys.
The publish Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector appeared first on Travel Daily Media.