Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just lately shared his insights with us on how firms are leveraging revolutionary options to reshape buyer expectations and experiences.
Plifka, a distinguished insurance coverage skilled with 18 years of in depth expertise within the Asia-Pacific area, specialises in embedded insurance coverage options the place related insurance coverage covers might be provided alongside the enterprise associate’s core product inside their current buyer journey.
Below 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 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 expertise developments remodeled the business to create unique and localised experiences.
Together with your intensive expertise, might 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 modifications and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of as we speak need options and companies which are only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.
Two key areas the place revolutionary options are enjoying a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey rigidity’, finally bettering buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In terms 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 will present options or affords based mostly 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 revolutionary instruments might be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions affords 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 info.
In your opinion, what are probably the most vital challenges presently dealing with firms within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they deal with these challenges successfully?
Customers of as we speak have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship prompt gratification. This immediacy has led to better competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting firms to concentrate on eliminating friction via expertise while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
For the reason that pandemic, folks have additionally develop into warier earlier than travelling with considerations similar to getting sick or caught in a rustic on account of sudden lockdowns, including to journey rigidity. Trade gamers must ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller considerations, journey suppliers can associate with ecosystem companions similar to journey insurers, as the appropriate insurance policies can deal with a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth via insurance policies that assist shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances similar to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide prospects 24/7 assist with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In terms of our product growth, prospects are on the centre of every part we do, and we use their suggestions and the newest 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 as we speak are demanding. Trade gamers must work throughout silos in order that collectively we might help travellers have memorable experiences that can preserve them coming again. What’s essential 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 will proceed to collaborate to search 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 best way, the extra loyal they’ll develop into. For instance, firms that associate with journey insurance coverage suppliers to reinforce buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through the complete journey expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, similar 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?
Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many facets of the journey much more handy, similar to empowering travellers to plan and e-book their whole journeys from the consolation of their houses or on the go, managing flights, transport, lodging and itinerary choices.
This additionally makes communication extra prompt, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nevertheless, that buyer assist have to be extra available to are inclined to world 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.
Know-how can even 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 inns and 99 % of airport managers surveyed stated that they undertake new applied sciences to deal with employees shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 % of airport respondents and 57 % of resort basic managers anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside traces. Fortuitously, instruments like AI might 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 develop 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 crucial is that as phrases can unfold shortly by way of platforms like social media, business gamers should keep conscious of what prospects and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as shortly on suggestions and considerations.
Wanting 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 prime of thoughts for the journey business, together with travellers who anticipate journey suppliers to deal with it. Customers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to firms that provide eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gasoline by way of Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, inns might concentrate on native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra aware of the impression their actions have on the surroundings, 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 shifting away from standard 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 via collaborations with different business companions. For instance, inns can associate 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 staff could not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they could convey their members of the family like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers might take a look at digital nomad packages, which might be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these staff 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 can 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 bettering the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning company. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts via their journey expertise in order that they will concentrate on having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and using expertise is one other space to think about, as expertise will current countless alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of expertise 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 constructive customer expertise and utilizing digital twins to reinforce occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller considerations, making certain that they’ve a easy and constructive expertise while on their journeys.
