Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just lately shared his insights with us on how firms 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 might be provided alongside the enterprise associate’s core product inside their current buyer journey.
Beneath 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 expertise developments remodeled 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 adjustments 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 modern options are enjoying an enormous half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey stress’, finally bettering 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 stress 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 cut back this stress, and modern instruments might be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions presents is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which supplies journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security info.
In your opinion, what are essentially the most vital challenges presently dealing with firms within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they handle these challenges successfully?
Shoppers 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 deal with eliminating friction by expertise while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
For the reason that pandemic, individuals have additionally develop into warier earlier than travelling with considerations resembling getting sick or caught in a rustic resulting from sudden lockdowns, including to journey stress. Business gamers must ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller considerations, journey suppliers can associate with ecosystem companions resembling journey insurers, as the correct insurance policies can handle a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by insurance policies that help customers throughout unexpected circumstances resembling flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide prospects 24/7 help with help groups throughout greater than 70 nations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In the case of our product growth, prospects are on the centre of every part we do, and we use their suggestions and the newest market knowledge to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed observe document, 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 in the present day are demanding. Business gamers must work throughout silos in order that collectively we may also help travellers have memorable experiences that may hold them coming again. What’s necessary 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 search out methods so as to add worth to the client.
As an trade, the extra we are able to 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 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 whole journey expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, resembling flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In reality, 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 trade?
Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many facets of the journey much more handy, resembling empowering travellers to plan and ebook 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 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 inclined to world travellers who could have considerations and are available from totally different time zones, as they’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Know-how also can assist form the trade by serving to to bridge gaps by way of labour shortages and improve journey experiences. In a 2023 examine by Deloitte, half of the lodges 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 anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside strains. Fortuitously, 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 larger connectivity on-line, journey experiences develop into a two-way avenue. Technological transformation has offered travellers with a voice to share brazenly about their experiences for different customers 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 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 trade, together with travellers who anticipate journey suppliers to handle it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to firms that provide eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas through Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, lodges may deal with native produce to help surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With customers being extra conscious of the affect their actions have on the surroundings, the trade has alternatives to reply with options that meet customers’ eco-conscious wants.
Their selections 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 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 collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, lodges 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 non permanent residents than vacationers. Distant staff could not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually could carry their relations like their companions and kids. 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 wish to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re in a position to cut back journey stress go a great 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 their journey expertise in order that they’ll deal with having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and using expertise is one other space to contemplate, as expertise will current infinite alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of expertise 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 considerations, making certain that they’ve a easy and constructive expertise while on their journeys.
