The submit Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector appeared first on TD (Journey Every day Media) Travel Daily Media.
Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just lately 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 intensive expertise within the Asia-Pacific area, specialises in embedded insurance coverage options the place related insurance coverage covers might be provided alongside the enterprise accomplice’s core product inside their current buyer journey.
Underneath 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 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 choose 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, might 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 right now need options and companies which are 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 rigidity’, finally enhancing 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’ll present options or provides primarily based 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 cut back this rigidity, and modern instruments might be a part of the answer. For instance, one of many instruments Allianz Companions provides is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which supplies journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embody vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.
In your opinion, what are essentially the most vital challenges at the moment 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 instantaneous gratification. This immediacy has led to larger competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to concentrate on eliminating friction by way of know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.
For the reason that pandemic, folks have additionally turn out to be warier earlier than travelling with issues comparable to getting sick or caught in a rustic as a result of sudden lockdowns, including to journey rigidity. Business gamers must ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller issues, journey suppliers can accomplice with ecosystem companions comparable to journey insurers, as the precise 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 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. On the subject of our product growth, prospects are on the centre of every little thing we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market knowledge to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed monitor file, 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. Business gamers must work throughout silos in order that collectively we may help travellers have memorable experiences that can preserve 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 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 way in which, the extra loyal they’ll turn out to be. For instance, corporations that accomplice 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.
Actually, 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 function do you consider technological transformations play in influencing the journey business?
Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many points of the journey way more handy, comparable to empowering travellers to plan and ebook 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 instantaneous, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nonetheless, that buyer help have to be extra available to are likely to world travellers who might 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 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 accommodations 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 lodge common managers anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside traces. Luckily, instruments like AI may 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 turn out to be a two-way road. 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 essential 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 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 business, together with travellers who anticipate journey suppliers to deal with it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that supply eco-friendly options. For instance, airways can supply cleaner gasoline by way of Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, accommodations might concentrate on native produce to help surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious 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 transferring away from typical tourism, trying to find extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.
Round 49 % of worldwide 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 business companions. For instance, accommodations 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 momentary residents than vacationers. Distant employees might not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they might convey their relations like their companions and youngsters. Hospitality gamers might take a look at digital nomad packages, which might be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these employees to unwind on their days off.
As a choose 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 business requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current surprising challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re capable of cut back journey rigidity go a great distance in enhancing the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning company. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts by way of their journey expertise in order that they’ll concentrate on having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and the usage of know-how is one other space to think about, as know-how will current limitless alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of know-how 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 boost occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller issues, making certain that they’ve a easy and constructive 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.
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