Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, not too long ago shared his insights with us on how corporations are leveraging modern 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 could be supplied alongside the enterprise accomplice’s core product inside their current buyer journey.
Below his management, Allianz Companions cemented its place as a number one insurance coverage supplier for modern options to the automotive, journey/airline, retail, and monetary service industries in Hong Kong.
On the similar time, Plifka’s deal with 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 trade gamers and the way know-how developments reworked the trade to create unique and localised experiences.
Along with your intensive expertise, may you elaborate on how modern 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 at this time need options and providers which can be only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.
Two key areas the place modern options are taking part in a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey pressure’, in the end enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In the case 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’ll present options or presents primarily based 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 plenty 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 modern instruments could be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions presents is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which gives journey recommendation and experience together with built-in providers. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.
In your opinion, what are essentially the most important challenges at the moment going through corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they handle these challenges successfully?
Shoppers of at this time 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 corporations to deal with eliminating friction by way of know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey providers.
For the reason that pandemic, folks have additionally grow to be warier earlier than travelling with issues equivalent to getting sick or caught in a rustic resulting from sudden lockdowns, including to journey pressure. Trade gamers have to ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller issues, journey suppliers can accomplice with ecosystem companions equivalent to journey insurers, as the appropriate insurance policies can handle a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by way of insurance policies that assist shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances equivalent 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 the case of our product improvement, prospects are on the centre of all the pieces we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market knowledge to form our product improvement.
Given your confirmed observe file, how do you suppose robust 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 at this time are demanding. Trade gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we may also help travellers have memorable experiences that may hold them coming again. What’s vital 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 search out methods so as to add worth to the shopper.
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’ll grow to be. For instance, corporations that accomplice 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 issues together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, equivalent to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
Actually, 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?
Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many features of the journey much more handy, equivalent to empowering travellers to plan and e book their whole 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 should be extra available to are inclined to world travellers who could have issues and are available from completely different time zones, as they’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Expertise can even assist form the trade 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 lodges and 99 p.c of airport managers surveyed mentioned that they undertake new applied sciences to deal with workers shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 p.c of airport respondents and 57 p.c of lodge normal managers anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and in the end their backside traces. Luckily, instruments like AI may also help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly prospects proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and higher connectivity on-line, journey experiences grow to be a two-way road. Technological transformation has supplied 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 through 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 suppose will current the best alternatives for progress and innovation?
Sustainability is more and more prime of thoughts for the journey trade, together with travellers who anticipate journey suppliers to deal with it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that provide eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can supply cleaner gasoline through Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, lodges may deal with native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious of the influence their actions have on the surroundings, the trade 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 p.c 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 way of collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, lodges can accomplice 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 non permanent residents than vacationers. Distant employees could not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they could convey their members of the family like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers may have a look at digital nomad packages, which could 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 guage the nominees?
A key criterion for me can be how nominees want to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current sudden challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re capable of scale back journey pressure go a good distance in enhancing the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning friends. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts by way of their journey expertise in order that they’ll deal with 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 constructive customer expertise and utilizing digital twins to reinforce occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller issues, guaranteeing that they’ve a clean and constructive expertise while on their journeys.