Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just lately shared his insights with us on how corporations are leveraging progressive 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 may be supplied alongside the enterprise companion’s core product inside their current buyer journey.
Beneath his management, Allianz Companions cemented its place as a number one insurance coverage supplier for progressive options to the automotive, journey/airline, retail, and monetary service industries in Hong Kong.
On the identical time, Plifka’s give attention to 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 decide on the TDM Journey Commerce Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, he delved into how journey suppliers can improve their choices by partnering with business gamers and the way know-how developments reworked the business to create unique and localised experiences.
Together with your intensive expertise, might you elaborate on how progressive 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 modifications and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of right now need options and companies which are only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.
Two key areas the place progressive options are enjoying a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey rigidity’, finally enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. On the subject of personalisation, it’s about synthetic intelligence (AI) and information analytics. For instance, offering airline or hospitality employees with visitor particulars and preferences at their fingertips in order that they’ll present options or presents 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 a variety 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 progressive instruments may be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions presents is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which supplies journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security info.
In your opinion, what are essentially the most vital challenges presently dealing with corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they handle these challenges successfully?
Customers of right now have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship immediate gratification. This immediacy has led to larger competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to give attention to eliminating friction by know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally change into warier earlier than travelling with issues corresponding to getting sick or caught in a rustic because of sudden lockdowns, including to journey rigidity. Trade gamers have to ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller issues, journey suppliers can companion with ecosystem companions corresponding to journey insurers, as the precise insurance policies can handle a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by insurance policies that assist shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances corresponding to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide prospects 24/7 assist with help groups throughout greater than 70 nations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. On the subject of our product growth, prospects are on the centre of every thing we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market information to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed observe file, how do you assume robust B2B2C partnerships contribute to the development and success of companies within the business?
Partnerships throughout the journey ecosystem are key to making sure seamlessness, which travellers of right now are demanding. Trade gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we can assist travellers have memorable experiences that can maintain them coming again. What’s necessary is that manufacturers are leveraging partnerships which are 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 business, the extra we are able to do for travellers to make their lives simpler and supply options in a well timed method alongside the way in which, the extra loyal they’ll change into. 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 whole journey expertise, eliminating travel-related issues together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, corresponding to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In truth, 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 function do you consider technological transformations play in influencing the journey business?
Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many features of the journey way more handy, corresponding to empowering travellers to plan and guide 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 immediate, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nonetheless, that buyer assist 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’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Expertise may also assist form the business by serving to to bridge gaps when it comes to 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 handle employees shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 % of airport respondents and 57 % of resort common managers count on automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside strains. Happily, instruments like AI can assist to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly prospects proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and larger connectivity on-line, journey experiences change into 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 important is that as phrases can unfold rapidly through platforms like social media, business 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 developments in journey and hospitality do you assume will current the best alternatives for progress and innovation?
Sustainability is more and more high of thoughts for the journey business, together with travellers who count on journey suppliers to handle it. Customers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that supply eco-friendly options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas through Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers different choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, accommodations might give attention to native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra aware of the influence their actions have on the atmosphere, the business 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, trying to find extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.
Round 49 % of world travellers search immersion in native cultures and merchandise, they usually need personalised experiences and actions. To satisfy this demand, journey suppliers can curate extra native experiences by collaborations with different business 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, they usually might convey their members of the family like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers might take a look at digital nomad packages, which may be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these employees to unwind on their days off.
As a decide on the TDM Journey Commerce Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, what are the first standards you’ll use to judge the nominees?
A key criterion for me could be how nominees wish to redefine business requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re in a position to cut back journey rigidity go a good distance in enhancing the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning visitors. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts by their journey expertise in order that they’ll give attention to having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and the usage of know-how is one other space to contemplate, as know-how will current countless 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, making certain that they’ve a clean and optimistic expertise while on their journeys.
