Q&A: Why Travel Brands Need to Close the Disruption Accountability Gap

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner. Travelers increasingly assemble trips across airlines, hotels, booking platforms, activities, ground transportation, and other providers. That gives them more choice and flexibility, but it can also create a problem when something goes wrong: Who owns the experience? A delayed flight can lead to a missed hotel night, excursion, cruise departure, or family event. Each company may be responsible for only one part of the journey, while the traveler experiences the disruption as a single problem. For a new report, Skift Studio spoke with Anna Kofoed, chief officer, global strategic partnerships at Allianz Partners, about why this “accountability gap” matters for customer loyalty, how brands can provide greater continuity during disruption, and where technology and human support each fit. Anna Kofoed, Chief Officer, Global Strategic Partnerships, Allianz Partners Skift Studio: As travel becomes more unbundled and self-directed, who does the traveler ultimately hold responsible when something goes wrong? Anna Kofoed: Whoever is closest in that moment of need. Travelers have become very sophisticated at assembling trips, but they shouldn’t be expected to understand how the travel ecosystem works behind the scenes. When things go sideways, they’ll often reach for the brand they feel the strongest relationship with, or at minimum, the one that’s most accessible. The modern trip might be stitched together across five, six, or even 10 different providers. Rarely does any one of them own the entire journey. When disruption hits, customers don’t start mapping contractual relationships. They want to know who is going to help them. That means the brand that has earned the deepest trust can also absorb the most reputational risk when things break. Whether that becomes a vulnerability or an opportunity depends on whether the brand has built the infrastructure to show up in those moments. Where is the biggest gap between who is technically responsible and who the traveler expects to resolve the problem? The biggest gap appears when a small disruption triggers a chain reaction. A delayed flight can lead to a missed connection, a lost hotel night, a canceled excursion, or a missed cruise departure. The industry tends to manage those issues by segment, but the traveler experiences them holistically. Each provider may be handling their piece, while the traveler is still left trying to stitch the solution together. From their perspective, everyone owns part of the problem, but nobody owns the outcome. Travel brands don’t necessarily need to solve every disruption themselves. The opportunity is to ensure systems are in place to facilitate support and reduce the burden on the traveler. What are the commercial consequences when nobody takes ownership of the experience end-to-end? They can be significant, but they’re often slow-burning. The effects may show up as lower repeat purchase intent, weaker advocacy, reduced loyalty engagement, or increased churn rather than as an immediate line item tied directly to disruption. Leaders increasingly need to view disruption as a revenue issue, not solely a service issue. Loyalty isn’t really tested when everything works perfectly. It’s tested when the journey falls apart. That makes disruption one of the most consequential moments in the customer lifecycle. What does taking ownership look like if no travel company can control the entire journey? No travel brand controls weather, air traffic, geopolitics, healthcare systems, or every supplier involved in a trip. Travelers understand that. What they do expect is guidance and support. In practice, ownership can mean reducing effort. Help travelers understand what is happening, what options they have, and what assistance is available. The brands doing this well aren’t trying to become experts in every form of disruption. They’re connecting assistance, protection, information, and communication around the traveler. That’s the model we’ve built with our partners. They maintain the customer relationship while Allianz Partners provides infrastructure, including travel protection, proactive benefits, medical access, and 24-hour assistance. What does Allianz’s data suggest about the relationship between disruption, trust, and loyalty? Research shows travelers remember disruption differently than they remember rewards. Positive experiences such as seamless booking, lounge access, or priority boarding can quickly become part of the expected baseline. Disruption creates uncertainty, and that changes how travelers evaluate a brand. The questions become: Can I trust them? Will they help me? Are they easy to reach? Do they care about my outcome? Travelers place significant value on support, protection, and access to human assistance during difficult moments. They increasingly see protection as a signal that a company cares about their well-being. Traditional loyalty mechanics still matter. But support during disruption can build a different kind of trust, one that is tested precisely when the customer relationship is under the most pressure. Where can AI and automation genuinely improve the disruption experience, and where does human support remain essential? I don’t see automation and human intervention as opposing forces. The strongest experiences use automation to remove friction so people can focus on the moments that require judgment, reassurance, and care. Automation is particularly valuable when speed, personalization, and scale matter. AI-powered claims processing can automatically approve straightforward claims, while flight monitoring can identify eligible delays and trigger benefits without requiring the traveler to file a traditional claim. But emotionally charged situations are different. A medical emergency abroad, a family stranded overnight, or a complicated multi-leg disruption requires more than information. Travelers want expertise and confidence that someone is actively helping them move forward. The goal is to automate the process where possible, while keeping human support close when the situation becomes complex. What should commercial and loyalty leaders prioritize if they want to start closing the accountability gap? Start by mapping the customer’s actual disruption journey, not the one in the service blueprint. Follow the traveler from the moment something breaks until they feel the issue has been resolved. Count the handoffs, the dead ends, and the amount of time between “something went wrong” and “someone is helping me.” That exercise can reveal where the experience is still fragmented and where connected support could make the biggest difference. The next step is to integrate protection and assistance into the places customers are already, whether that’s the booking flow, an app, or a loyalty program. You can’t solve a fragmented travel experience by adding another fragmented journey. The goal should be to make support feel like a natural extension of the customer relationship. For more data and insights on how travel brands can close the disruption accountability gap and rethink the role of support in customer loyalty, download the new report from Skift and Allianz Partners. This sponsored content was created collaboratively by Allianz Partners and Skift Studio.