Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Partners 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 in the Asia-Pacific area, specialises in embedded insurance coverage options the place related insurance coverage covers will be supplied alongside the enterprise companion’s core product inside their present buyer journey.
Under his management, Allianz Partners cemented its place as a number one insurance coverage supplier for modern options to the automotive, travel/airline, retail, and monetary service industries in Hong Kong.
At the identical time, Plifka’s focus 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 firm’s continued success.
As a choose at the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, he delved into how travel suppliers can improve their choices by partnering with trade gamers and the way expertise developments remodeled the trade to create unique and localised experiences.
With your intensive expertise, may you elaborate on how modern options form buyer experiences in the travel, leisure, and hospitality sectors?
Following the pandemic, we’re persevering with to see a digital transformation of travel and tourism, pushed by technological modifications and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of at the moment need options and providers which might be only a click on away, offering seamless travel experiences.
Two key areas the place modern options are enjoying an enormous half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘travel tension’, in the end enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. When it involves 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’ll present options or presents based mostly on these distinctive wants.
Travel 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 travel suppliers to scale back this pressure, and modern instruments will be a part of the answer. For instance, considered one of the instruments Allianz Partners presents is Allyz, a one-stop-shop digital platform which gives travel recommendation and experience together with built-in providers. Features embrace vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security info.
In your opinion, what are the most vital challenges presently dealing with corporations in the travel and hospitality industries, and the way can they deal with these challenges successfully?
Consumers of at the moment have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship immediate gratification. This immediacy has led to better competitors amongst travel suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to focus on eliminating friction by expertise while sustaining a human contact in travel providers.
Since the pandemic, folks have additionally turn out to be warier earlier than travelling with considerations resembling getting sick or caught in a rustic on account of sudden lockdowns, including to travel pressure. Industry gamers have to ease these anxieties and supply peace of thoughts.
To assist mitigate traveller considerations, travel suppliers can companion with ecosystem companions resembling travel insurers, as the proper insurance policies can deal with a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the begin. Insurers like Allianz Partners present worth by insurance policies that assist customers throughout unexpected circumstances resembling 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. When it involves our product growth, prospects are at the centre of all the things we do, and we use their suggestions and the newest market information to form our product growth.
Given your confirmed monitor file, how do you assume robust B2B2C partnerships contribute to the development and success of companies in the trade?
Partnerships throughout the travel ecosystem are key to making sure seamlessness, which travellers of at the moment are demanding. Industry gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we may help travellers have memorable experiences that may maintain 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 buyer.
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 means, the extra loyal they may turn out to be. For instance, corporations that companion with travel insurance coverage suppliers to reinforce buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through the complete travel expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, resembling flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.
In truth, our prospects have informed us that coupling travel 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 travel trade?
Technology has revolutionised travel and made many elements of the journey way more handy, resembling empowering travellers to plan and e-book 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 assist should be extra available to are inclined to world travellers who could have considerations and are available from completely different time zones, as they may demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.
Technology can even assist form the trade by serving to to bridge gaps in phrases of labour shortages and improve travel experiences. In a 2023 examine by Deloitte, half of the inns and 99 p.c of airport managers surveyed mentioned that they undertake new applied sciences to handle employees shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 p.c of airport respondents and 57 p.c of lodge common managers count on automation to spice up visitor experiences and in the end their backside strains. Fortunately, instruments like AI may help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly prospects proper the place they’re.
With extra seamless communication and better connectivity on-line, travel 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 customers to learn, so there’s much more transparency and openness internationally now. What is essential is that as phrases can unfold shortly through platforms like social media, trade gamers should keep conscious of what prospects and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as shortly on suggestions and considerations.
Looking forward, what future tendencies in travel and hospitality do you assume will current the biggest alternatives for development and innovation?
Sustainability is more and more high of thoughts for the travel trade, together with travellers who count on travel suppliers to handle it. Consumers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that supply eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can provide cleaner gasoline through Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. Meanwhile, inns may focus on native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With customers being extra conscious of the affect their actions have on the atmosphere, 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 shifting away from standard tourism, trying to find extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.
Around 49 p.c of world travellers search immersion in native cultures and merchandise, and so they need personalised experiences and actions. To meet this demand, travel suppliers can curate extra native experiences by collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, inns 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 as the quantity is predicted to extend. These people travel freely and work remotely from throughout the world, seeing themselves extra as short-term residents than vacationers. Remote staff could not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they could deliver their relations like their companions and youngsters. Hospitality gamers may have a look at digital nomad packages, which will be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these staff to unwind on their days off.
As a choose at the TDM Travel Trade Excellence Awards Hong Kong 2025, what are the major standards you’ll use to guage the nominees?
A key criterion for me could be how nominees need to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current sudden challenges for vacationers and travel suppliers who’re capable of cut back travel pressure go a great 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 their travel expertise in order that they’ll focus on having an unforgettable journey.
Innovation and the use of 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 optimistic customer expertise and utilizing digital twins to reinforce occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller considerations, making certain that they’ve a clean and optimistic expertise while on their journeys.
