Allianz Partners HK’s Greg Plifka shares insights on innovation in the travel sector

Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, just 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 could be provided alongside the enterprise associate’s core product inside their present buyer journey.

Underneath 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 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 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 expertise developments reworked the business to create unique and localised experiences.

Along with your intensive expertise, might 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 adjustments and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of right now need options and companies which might be only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.

Two key areas the place progressive options are enjoying a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey pressure’, in the end enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. Relating to personalisation, it’s about synthetic intelligence (AI) and information 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 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 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 pressure, and progressive 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 offers journey recommendation and experience together with built-in companies. Options embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.

In your opinion, what are probably the most important challenges at the moment dealing with firms within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they deal with these challenges successfully?

Customers of right now have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship on the spot gratification. This immediacy has led to better competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting firms to deal with eliminating friction by means of expertise while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.

Because the pandemic, folks have additionally develop into warier earlier than travelling with issues corresponding to getting sick or caught in a rustic on account of 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 associate with ecosystem companions corresponding to journey insurers, as the appropriate insurance policies can deal with a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by means of insurance policies that assist customers throughout unexpected circumstances corresponding 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. Relating to our product growth, prospects are on the centre of all the pieces we do, and we use their suggestions and the newest market information to form our product growth.

Given your confirmed monitor 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 have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we can assist travellers have memorable experiences that can hold them coming again. What’s necessary 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’ll 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 may develop into. For instance, firms that associate with journey insurance coverage suppliers to boost buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through your entire journey expertise, eliminating travel-related issues together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, corresponding to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.

In truth, our prospects have advised 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?

Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many features of the journey much more handy, corresponding to empowering travellers to plan and ebook 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 on the spot, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nonetheless, that buyer assist have to be extra available to are inclined to international travellers who could have issues and are available from totally different time zones, as they may demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.

Know-how 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 resorts 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 in the end their backside traces. Thankfully, instruments like AI can assist to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly prospects proper the place they’re.

With extra seamless communication and better connectivity on-line, journey experiences develop into a two-way avenue. Technological transformation has supplied travellers with a voice to share overtly about their experiences for different customers to learn, so there’s much more transparency and openness internationally now. What’s essential is that as phrases can unfold rapidly through 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 developments 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 handle it. Customers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to firms that supply eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gas through Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers different choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, resorts might deal with native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With customers being extra conscious of the influence their actions have on the setting, the business 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 shifting away from typical 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, resorts 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 the world over, seeing themselves extra as short-term residents than vacationers. Distant employees could not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually could convey their relations like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers might 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 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 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 enhancing the expertise of travellers, turning them into returning friends. With enhanced buyer care, travellers usually tend to have peace of thoughts by means of 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 limitless 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 boost occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller issues, making certain that they’ve a easy and constructive expertise while on their journeys.