Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector
The submit Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector appeared first on TD (Journey Day by day Media) Travel Daily Media.
Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, 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 might be supplied 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 progressive options to the automotive, journey/airline, retail, and monetary service industries in Hong Kong.
On the similar 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 know-how developments remodeled the business to create unique and localised experiences.
Together 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 right now need options and providers which might be 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 rigidity’, in the end bettering buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. On the subject of personalisation, it’s about synthetic intelligence (AI) and knowledge analytics. For instance, offering airline or hospitality workers 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 number 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 cut back this rigidity, and progressive 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 providers. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security info.
In your opinion, what are probably the most vital challenges at the moment dealing with firms within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they tackle these challenges successfully?
Shoppers of right now have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship instantaneous gratification. This immediacy has led to higher competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting firms to concentrate on eliminating friction via know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey providers.
Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally grow to be warier earlier than travelling with considerations similar to getting sick or caught in a rustic because 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 companion with ecosystem companions similar to journey insurers, as the proper insurance policies can tackle 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 clients 24/7 assist with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. On the subject of our product improvement, clients are on the centre of the whole lot we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market knowledge to form our product improvement.
Given your confirmed observe document, how do you suppose 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 must work throughout silos in order that collectively we can assist travellers have memorable experiences that may hold them coming again. What’s essential is that manufacturers are leveraging partnerships which might be 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 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 best way, the extra loyal they may grow to be. For instance, firms that companion with journey insurance coverage suppliers to boost buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through all the journey expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, similar to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In truth, our clients 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 business?
Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many facets of the journey way more handy, similar to empowering travellers to plan and e book their complete journeys from the consolation of their properties or on the go, managing flights, transport, lodging and itinerary choices.
This additionally makes communication extra instantaneous, 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 likely to international travellers who could have considerations and are available from totally different time zones, as they may demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Expertise also can 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 deal with workers shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 % of airport respondents and 57 % of resort normal managers count on automation to spice up visitor experiences and in the end their backside traces. Fortuitously, instruments like AI can assist to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly clients proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and higher connectivity on-line, journey experiences grow to be 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 important is that as phrases can unfold rapidly through platforms like social media, business gamers should keep conscious of what clients and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as rapidly on suggestions and considerations.
Trying forward, what future tendencies in journey and hospitality do you suppose 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 count on journey suppliers to deal with it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to firms 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, resorts may concentrate on native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious of the impression 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 transferring away from standard tourism, trying to find 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 via 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 the world over, seeing themselves extra as momentary residents than vacationers. Distant staff could not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually could carry their members of the family like their companions and youngsters. Hospitality gamers may 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 guage the nominees?
A key criterion for me could be taking a look at how nominees need to redefine business requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re capable of scale back journey rigidity go a great 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 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 considerations, guaranteeing that they’ve a easy and optimistic expertise while on their journeys.
The submit Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector appeared first on Travel Daily Media.