The world's leading company in comprehensive travel assistance was present at the great Colombian tourism event presenting its novelties for this year
ASSIST CARD, the world's leading company in comprehensive travel assistance, set up a large stand at the ANATO Tourist Showcase. There we have been able to exclusively interview its Global CEO Carlos Stefani. We share their responses below:
What products have been presented in the ANATO Tourist Showcase?
For us this fair is a classic, we have been coming for many years to see many friends who are also partners and it is always very good to be present, we have even been able to meet again with people who could not come last year. Regarding the products themselves, I would like to emphasize that we worked hard during the pandemic and today customers are much more aware of the importance of traveling protected and that translates into a greater penetration of our products over the number of travellers. Previously we had launched an assistance of more than one million dollars, then we realized that it was necessary to make an update of the coverage amounts and now we are launching a coverage of 3 million dollars which is our main novelty.
How important is the Colombian market for you?
Colombia is one of the most important markets without a doubt. It is among the top 3 countries in which we operate and where we have a rich history of more than 40 years. Here we are leaders and we have a contract with all the large tourism groups.
What expectations do you have for the rest of this year?
Assuming that there is no strong setback with the pandemic and that a new variant appears, we believe that it is going to be a very good year for tourism in general, but for our product in particular we are even seeing if we can exceed the levels of 2019. We are very optimistic.
How do you think the tourism market can evolve from now on?
We believe that the market is growing, but even with some restrictions even in terms of the offer of flights, there are countries where the availability of routes is still low and that has also directly affected the value of tickets, so we assume that, with lower volume of travelers, billing numbers equal or even exceed 2019 levels. 2022 is a very strong year in terms of recovery and we notice a lot of demand, after the pandemic, we feel that nobody wants to stop traveling. It has even been shown that there are people willing to pay almost any cost.
What initiatives do you have prepared to generate even more added value in such a competitive market?
We have been working very hard for many years to add technology to the provision of the service and that does not mean replacing the human factor, which is essential. The idea is that the client chooses how to be assisted and in this sense our goal is to standardize the processes of requesting assistance through all service channels. In addition, we did a complete re-engineering of the withdrawal process. The goal is that our customers can be served without spending money. We have made an update within the application so that today we can offer assistance requests in service channels such as the web, the application, WhatsApp and the telephone. Of course, we continue to invest to give more and more prominence to telemedicine, which has a very curious phenomenon.
Today there is a great acceptance of telemedicine, which is a highly efficient gateway for both parties at the time of assistance because it quickly serves so that the patient can make contact with a doctor and that he can know if his case is resolved and in what way.