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 revolutionary 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 will be supplied alongside the enterprise accomplice’s core product inside their current buyer journey.

Below his management, Allianz Companions cemented its place as a number one insurance coverage supplier for revolutionary 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 decide 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 reworked the trade to create unique and localised experiences.

Along with your intensive expertise, may you elaborate on how revolutionary 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 in the present day need options and companies which are only a click on away, offering seamless journey experiences.

Two key areas the place revolutionary options are enjoying a giant half are personalisation and fixing what we name ‘journey stress’, finally bettering buyer experiences and boosting loyalty. With regards 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 will present options or provides primarily based 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 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 stress, and revolutionary instruments will 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 embody vacation spot itineraries and real-time flight and security data.

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

Shoppers of in the present day have gotten extra demanding, anticipating environment friendly and intuitive experiences that ship immediate gratification. This immediacy has led to larger competitors amongst journey suppliers for loyalty, prompting corporations to concentrate on eliminating friction by way of expertise while sustaining a human contact in journey companies.

Because the pandemic, folks have additionally turn into warier earlier than travelling with considerations similar to getting sick or caught in a rustic on account of sudden lockdowns, including to journey stress. Trade 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 appropriate insurance policies can deal with 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 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. With regards to our product improvement, clients are on the centre of every little thing we do, and we use their suggestions and the most recent market information to form our product improvement.

Given your confirmed observe file, 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 in the present day are demanding. Trade gamers must work throughout silos in order that collectively we might help travellers have memorable experiences that can preserve them coming again. What’s essential 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 will 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 way in which, the extra loyal they’ll turn 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.

The truth is, our clients 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 trade?

Expertise has revolutionised journey and made many facets of the journey much more handy, similar to empowering travellers to plan and ebook their total 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, nevertheless, that buyer help have to be extra available to are likely to world travellers who might have considerations and are available from completely different time zones, as they’ll demand responses immediately or inside minutes, with restricted ready time.

Expertise may 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 accommodations and 99 p.c of airport managers surveyed mentioned 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 lodge basic managers anticipate automation to spice up visitor experiences and finally their backside traces. Happily, instruments like AI might help to hurry up responsiveness and servicing by assembly clients proper the place they’re.

With extra seamless communication and larger connectivity on-line, journey experiences turn into a two-way avenue. 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 rapidly through 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 considerations.

Trying 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 prime of thoughts for the journey trade, together with travellers who anticipate 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 provide cleaner gasoline through Sustainable Aviation Gas (SAF) or give vacationers different choices to buy carbon offsets. In the meantime, accommodations may concentrate on native produce to help surrounding communities and reduce their carbon footprint. With shoppers being extra aware of the impression their actions have on the setting, the trade has alternatives to reply with options that meet shoppers’ eco-conscious wants.

Their choices 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.

Round 49 p.c 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 way of collaborations with different trade 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 internationally, seeing themselves extra as short-term residents than vacationers. Distant employees might not essentially be particular person travellers, they usually might carry their relations like their companions and kids. Hospitality gamers may take a look at digital nomad packages, which will be coupled with curated luxurious or wellness experiences for these employees to unwind on their days off.

As a decide 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 could be how nominees want to redefine trade requirements and elevate buyer experiences. Travelling can current sudden challenges for vacationers and journey suppliers who’re in a position to scale back journey stress go a great distance in bettering 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 will concentrate on having an unforgettable journey.

Innovation and the usage of expertise is one other space to think about, as expertise will current infinite alternatives for nominees to ship high-quality experiences. Examples of expertise 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 considerations, guaranteeing that they’ve a clean and constructive expertise while on their journeys.