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 corporations 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 supplied 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 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 trade gamers and the way expertise developments remodeled the trade to create unique and localised experiences.

Along 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 adjustments and developments which have redefined buyer expectations. Travellers of at this time need options and companies which might be only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.

Two key areas the place modern options are enjoying a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey stress’, finally enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In relation to 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 will present options or affords based mostly 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 number 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 affords 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 corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they deal with these challenges successfully?

Shoppers of at this time have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship prompt 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 companies.

Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally change into warier earlier than travelling with considerations similar to getting sick or caught in a rustic as a result of 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 accomplice with ecosystem companions similar to journey insurers, as the proper 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 help shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances similar to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide clients 24/7 help with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In relation to our product improvement, clients are on the centre of all the things we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market knowledge to form our product improvement.

Given your confirmed monitor report, how do you assume 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 at this time are demanding. Business gamers must 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 will proceed to collaborate to seek out methods so as to add worth to the shopper.

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 change into. For instance, corporations that accomplice with journey insurance coverage suppliers to boost buyer care can differentiate themselves by providing peace of thoughts all through your complete journey expertise, eliminating travel-related considerations together with disruptions and unexpected circumstances, similar to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.

In actual fact, our clients 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 imagine technological transformations play in influencing the journey trade?

Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many elements of the journey much more handy, similar to empowering travellers to plan and e-book 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 prompt, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nevertheless, that buyer help have to be extra available to are likely to world travellers who might 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 research by Deloitte, half of the resorts and 99 p.c of airport managers surveyed stated that they undertake new applied sciences to handle workers shortages they expertise. It additionally discovered that 74 p.c of airport respondents and 57 p.c of resort normal managers count on automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside traces. Thankfully, instruments like AI can assist to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly clients proper the place they’re.

With extra seamless communication and higher connectivity on-line, journey experiences change into a two-way road. Technological transformation has offered travellers with a voice to share brazenly about their experiences for different shoppers to learn, so there’s much more transparency and openness internationally now. What’s important is that as phrases can unfold shortly through platforms like social media, trade gamers should keep conscious of what clients and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as shortly on suggestions and considerations.

Wanting forward, what future tendencies in journey and hospitality do you assume will current the best alternatives for development and innovation?

Sustainability is more and more prime of thoughts for the journey trade, together with travellers who count on journey suppliers to handle it. Shoppers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that provide eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can supply cleaner gas through Sustainable Aviation Gasoline (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, resorts 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 trade 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, looking for extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.

Round 49 p.c of world travellers search immersion in native cultures and merchandise, they usually need personalised experiences and actions. To fulfill this demand, journey suppliers can curate extra native experiences by means of collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, resorts 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 internationally, seeing themselves extra as short-term residents than vacationers. Distant staff might not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually 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 staff 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 want 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 enhancing 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 the usage of expertise is one other space to think about, 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 boost occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller considerations, guaranteeing that they’ve a easy and optimistic expertise while on their journeys.