The Skift Takeaway

THE ARGUMENT

Surana rejected the framing that dominated earlier sessions, namely that brands should fight to “own” the customer relationship. Travelers now assemble fractured journeys across OTAs, airlines, hotels, and experience providers, and no single brand controls the stack. The winning move, Surana said, is to be the orchestrator that holds the journey together when something breaks, not the gatekeeper that tries to lock the customer in. That reframes loyalty as a function of who shows up in distress, not who captured the booking. And it puts the brand-affinity risk squarely on whoever sits at the front of the ecosystem when a partner fails to deliver.

THE EVIDENCE

• Allianz handled 325,000 medical cases last year — more than 1,000 per day — and 14,000 medical repatriations, at an average air-ambulance cost of $300,000 to $1 million per case.
• “The future is not about any one brand or any one provider owning the ecosystem. It is a platform and ecosystem play,” Surana said.
• About 70 percent of Asia Pacific tourism is now intra-region post-pandemic, with roughly 30 percent of the region’s 620 million outbound travelers coming from China.
• “If, for whatever reason, one particular provider did not deliver on the brand promise, it is your brand that is also getting negatively impacted. The customer doesn’t care,” Surana said.
• Allianz’s offer-optimization engine, Allianz Fusion, processed 1.9 billion offers last year across 36 airlines and 30 markets.
• “A traveler will want different needs fulfilled through one single point. Our role is to be that constant companion through the entire journey,” Surana said.