The publish Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector appeared first on TD (Journey Each day Media) Travel Daily Media.
Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just lately shared his insights with us on how firms 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 will be provided alongside the enterprise companion’s core product inside their present buyer journey.
Below 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 choose 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.
Along with your intensive expertise, may 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 in the present day need options and companies which are only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.
Two key areas the place progressive options are enjoying an enormous half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey pressure’, finally enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In terms 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 provides based mostly on these distinctive wants.
Journey pressure 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 whole 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 pressure, and progressive instruments will be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions provides is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which offers journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embody vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.
In your opinion, what are essentially the most vital challenges at present dealing with firms within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they tackle these challenges successfully?
Customers of in the present day 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 firms to give attention to eliminating friction by means of know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally turn into warier earlier than travelling with considerations equivalent to getting sick or caught in a rustic as a result of sudden lockdowns, including to journey pressure. Trade gamers have to ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller considerations, journey suppliers can companion with ecosystem companions equivalent to journey insurers, as the precise insurance policies can tackle a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by means of insurance policies that assist shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances equivalent to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide clients 24/7 assist with help groups throughout greater than 70 nations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In terms of our product growth, clients are on the centre of all the pieces we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market information to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed monitor report, how do you assume sturdy 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 in the present day are demanding. Trade gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we might help travellers have memorable experiences that can preserve them coming again. What’s vital 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 shopper.
As an business, the extra we will 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 turn into. For instance, firms that companion with journey insurance coverage suppliers to boost buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through your complete journey expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, equivalent to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In reality, our clients have instructed us that coupling journey insurance coverage with their core merchandise or choices resulted in higher conversions of their core product.
What position do you imagine technological transformations play in influencing the journey business?
Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many points of the journey much more handy, equivalent to empowering travellers to plan and e-book their total journeys from the consolation of their properties 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 should be extra available to are likely to international travellers who could have considerations and are available from completely different time zones, as they’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Expertise may 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 resorts and 99 % of airport managers surveyed mentioned that they undertake new applied sciences to handle 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 finally their backside strains. Fortuitously, instruments like AI might help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly clients proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and larger connectivity on-line, journey experiences turn into a two-way avenue. Technological transformation has supplied travellers with a voice to share brazenly about their experiences for different shoppers to learn, so there’s much more transparency and openness internationally now. What’s essential is that as phrases can unfold shortly through platforms like social media, business gamers should keep conscious of what clients and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as shortly on suggestions and considerations.
Wanting forward, what future tendencies 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 business, together with travellers who count on journey suppliers to handle it. Customers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to firms that provide eco-friendly options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas through Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers different choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, resorts may give attention to native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious of the influence their actions have on the setting, the business has alternatives to reply with options that meet shoppers’ eco-conscious wants.
Their choices are additionally fuelled by wanting genuine and distinctive experiences, pushed by post-pandemic attitudes. Travellers are more and more shifting away from typical tourism, looking for extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.
Round 49 % of worldwide travellers search immersion in native cultures and merchandise, they usually need personalised experiences and actions. To fulfill this demand, journey suppliers can curate extra native experiences by means of collaborations with different business companions. For instance, resorts 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 momentary residents than vacationers. Distant employees could not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually could carry their members of the family 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 wish to redefine business requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re capable of cut back journey pressure 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 means of their journey expertise in order that they’ll give attention to having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and using know-how is one other space to think about, as know-how will current countless alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of know-how making a distinction in tourism embody 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 considerations, 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.