Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, lately shared his insights with us on how corporations are leveraging revolutionary 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 could be provided alongside the enterprise companion’s core product inside their present buyer journey.
Underneath 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 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 business gamers and the way expertise developments reworked the business to create unique and localised experiences.
Along 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 adjustments and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of right now need options and providers which can be 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 pressure’, 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 provides 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 loads 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 pressure, and revolutionary instruments could be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions provides is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which gives journey recommendation and experience together with built-in providers. Options embody vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.
In your opinion, what are probably the most vital challenges presently going through corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they handle these challenges successfully?
Shoppers of right now have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship immediate gratification. This immediacy has led to higher competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to deal with eliminating friction by means of expertise while sustaining a human contact in journey providers.
Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally grow to be warier earlier than travelling with issues comparable 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 companion with ecosystem companions comparable 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 means of insurance policies that help shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances comparable to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide prospects 24/7 help with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In terms of our product improvement, prospects are on the centre of every little thing we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market information to form our product improvement.
Given your confirmed observe report, how do you suppose 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 right now are demanding. Trade gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we might help travellers have memorable experiences that may hold them coming again. What’s essential 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 will proceed to collaborate to search out methods so as to add worth to the client.
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 grow to be. For instance, corporations 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 issues together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, comparable to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In actual fact, our prospects 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 consider technological transformations play in influencing the journey business?
Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many facets of the journey much more handy, comparable to empowering travellers to plan and e book 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 help should be extra available to are likely to international travellers who could have issues and are available from totally different time zones, as they’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Know-how may assist form the business by serving to to bridge gaps when it comes to labour shortages and improve journey experiences. In a 2023 research by Deloitte, half of the motels 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 lodge basic managers anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside traces. Happily, instruments like AI might 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 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 rapidly on suggestions and issues.
Trying forward, what future tendencies in journey and hospitality do you suppose 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 anticipate journey suppliers to handle it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that supply eco-friendly options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas by way of Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, motels might deal with native produce to help 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 shifting away from standard 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 means of collaborations with different business companions. For instance, motels 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 non permanent residents than vacationers. Distant employees could not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually could convey their relations like their companions and youngsters. Hospitality gamers might take 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 judge the nominees?
A key criterion for me can be how nominees want 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 pressure go a good distance in bettering 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 will deal with 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 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.