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

Greg Plifka, Managing Director at Allianz Companions Hong Kong, lately shared his insights with us on how corporations 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 may be supplied alongside the enterprise companion’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 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 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 know-how developments remodeled the trade to create unique and localised experiences.

Together with your intensive expertise, may 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 modifications 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 progressive options are enjoying an enormous half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey pressure’, in the end enhancing buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. In the case of 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 based mostly 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 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 scale back this pressure, and progressive instruments may 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 probably the most important challenges at present going through corporations within the journey and hospitality industries, and the way can they handle these challenges successfully?

Customers of at this time 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 corporations to deal with eliminating friction by means of know-how while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.

Because the pandemic, individuals have additionally change into warier earlier than travelling with issues akin to getting sick or caught in a rustic as a consequence 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 companion with ecosystem companions akin to journey insurers, as the best insurance policies can handle a few of these anxieties and reassure travellers from the beginning. Insurers like Allianz Companions present worth by means of insurance policies that assist shoppers throughout unexpected circumstances akin to flight disruptions and cancellations. We provide clients 24/7 assist with help groups throughout greater than 70 international locations, offering high-tech and human-touch experiences. In the case of our product growth, clients are on the centre of the whole lot we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market information to form our product growth.

Given your confirmed observe document, 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. Trade gamers have to work throughout silos in order that collectively we may help travellers have memorable experiences that may 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 seek 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 best way, the extra loyal they may change into. For instance, corporations that companion with journey insurance coverage suppliers to reinforce 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, akin to flight delays, private emergencies, or baggage points.

Actually, 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 position do you imagine technological transformations play in influencing the journey trade?

Know-how has revolutionised journey and made many elements of the journey way more handy, akin 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 on the spot, and travellers can simply contact service suppliers to troubleshoot any points proper as they crop up. This additionally means, nevertheless, 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 may also assist form the trade by serving to to bridge gaps when it comes to labour shortages and improve journey experiences. In a 2023 examine by Deloitte, half of the motels and 99 % of airport managers surveyed stated 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 strains. Thankfully, instruments like AI may help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly clients proper the place they’re.

With extra seamless communication and better connectivity on-line, journey experiences change into a two-way road. Technological transformation has supplied 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 vital is that as phrases can unfold rapidly by way of platforms like social media, trade gamers should keep conscious of what clients and travellers are saying, to allow them to act simply as rapidly on suggestions and issues.

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

Sustainability is more and more high of thoughts for the journey trade, together with travellers who anticipate journey suppliers to handle it. Customers have gotten more and more eco-conscious and open to corporations that provide eco-friendly alternate options. For instance, airways can supply cleaner gas by way of Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers various choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, motels may deal with native produce to assist surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra conscious of the influence their actions have on the setting, 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 shifting away from typical tourism, looking for extra personally significant locations and offbeat experiences.

Round 49 % of world 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 means of collaborations with different trade companions. For instance, motels 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 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 staff could not essentially be particular person travellers, and so they could convey their relations like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers may take a look at digital nomad packages, which may 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 judge the nominees?

A key criterion for me can be taking a look at how nominees wish to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current sudden challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re in a position to cut back journey 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 means of their journey expertise in order that they’ll deal with having an unforgettable journey.

Innovation and the usage of know-how is one other space to contemplate, as know-how will current countless 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 reinforce occasions. These examples all return to mitigating traveller issues, making certain that they’ve a easy and constructive expertise while on their journeys.