Business travel technology provider embeds visa payments into booking process

Perk has launched Entry Ready, which it says is the first integrated workflow enabling business travellers to apply and pay for eVisas and electronic travel authorisations (ETAs) at the point of booking.

Available to all Perk customers, the new feature uses travellers’ stored passport profiles to identify visa requirements before a trip is booked. Applications and payments are completed within the platform through a partnership with visa solutions platform Sherpa, giving finance teams a single expense line item for the total trip cost.

The launch builds on a phased rollout that began in January, when Perk introduced automated entry requirement checks. Since then, the company says the system has analysed more than 500,000 trips, identifying visa requirements before bookings were made.

Entry Ready is Perk’s second product to emerge from its Real Work Incubator following the launch of Perk Events earlier this year.

The business travel technology provider also released research highlighting the challenges travellers face with visas. Among 8,000 business travellers surveyed across Europe and the US, 41% applied for a visa or ETA in the past year, with almost half encountering problems. More than a third incurred additional travel costs, while 16% cancelled or postponed a trip because of visa-related issues.

A recent World Travel Protection survey looked at the impact of business travel on employees’ mental health.