Getting the right documentation for entry into foreign countries can be fraught with problems. Jenny Southan looks at how visa services can help.

So you want to go to China on business. You fill in a visa application form, get a passport photo, obtain a visa notification document issued by the relevant department of the Chinese government, photocopy your hotel booking in China and flight ticket, and check there are at least six months left on your passport. After taking the morning off work, you get up early and head to the Chinese embassy in London, join the queue at 8am, shuffle towards the desk at an interminably slow rate, and finally find yourself standing face to face with an embassy employee at 10.30am.

You slide your documents under the glass divide and the woman behind the desk starts to look through them. When she comes to your application form she sighs, points to the page with her pen and says: "You have written in blue ink. You will have to fill it out again. Next please!" Realising the embassy closes at noon, you walk out fuming, cursing the fickle nature of bureaucracy, and calling in to schedule another morning off work.

There is, of course, a way around this, and that’s by using a visa service provider (or, if you are part of a larger enterprise, a TMC). Companies such as Visa Swift employ couriers to collect your documents, check them, take them to the embassy, queue up, collect the visa and return it to you, saving you time out of the office and the stress of ensuring you have met all the demands.

Edward Carnell, managing director of Visa Swift, has been working with embassies for years and knows all their visa regulations, which is quite a feat considering many of them change daily. He says: "China has been changing its processes in the run-up to the Olympics [to restrict the number of people entering the country], so now there is a 'nil error' rate, meaning you can queue for up to four hours and if there is anything wrong you will be sent to the end of the line."

Historically, Visa Swift was a courier company, so it is well equipped to move documents around the country. Carnell says: "We have taken our tracking technology and laid it across our visa product. We have automated technology, which means that if you go onto our website you can select your nationality, where you want to go, click three buttons, and the system will automatically generate a job, a tracking number, send you an email, your forms, your invitation letters, advise you on the style of the visa, give you travel tips, and even send a copy of that to your travel agent."

From the point of creating the document online, it starts an "ageing process". Carnell says: "Once we know when the person is travelling, we can calculate how many days it’s going to cost us to procure the visa. When the customer sends the paperwork to us they get an email on every single status change, right the way through the process. Our couriers have a Palm Pilot that is linked to the visa, so when they get to the embassy and log the application they will type into the Palm Pilot and update the precise status of the visa from 'sent' to 'lodged' via an email."

While some visa services can get visas for every country that allows for third-party submissions, other companies prefer to specialise, building relationships with specific embassies. Travel agent Trailfinders has a small department providing visas for around 22 different countries, including Australia, Egypt and Zambia. John Masterson, visa manager of Trailfinders, says: "We try to be king of a few countries as opposed to jack of many – we like to build rapport with those we deal with."

Shawn Hefner, director of business development at visa provider CIBT, agrees: "Some embassies are very strict and don’t do any favours, but if you have built up good relations with them over the years then maybe they will process it faster."

When paying for a visa service you are also paying for the knowledge they have about embassy requirements. They will provide you with updates of changes the embassies are making and advise on potential pitfalls in the application process. Michael Chilcott, visa consultant for Visa Express, recommends: "Have two passports [so one can be sent with a visa application while you travel on the other] and always keep a supply of photographs because that is the one thing people never have. But make sure they are proper photos, rather than the ones you have scanned and printed out, because the embassies won’t accept them."

If you don’t have a duplicate passport and find you urgently need a visa, many providers and TMCs will go to great lengths to help. Chris Tumbridge, general manager for BCD Travel UK and Ireland, says: "We can send a courier to meet a customer as soon as they step off the plane – all they have to do is go through immigration, through security and we can collect their passport from them then and there. We then go directly to the embassy to get the visa processed."

The price of a 24-hour express service is, of course, higher (a single-entry Chinese visa from Visa World, for example, will cost an additional £20 for the same-day service) but the peace of mind is often worth it. Tumbridge says: "If you are travelling to a region that requires a visa, think ahead about when you release your passport to get the stamp done. And give as much notice as you can – this will also reduce the cost impact, as most embassies have a tiered service of urgent and non-urgent applications."

The time it takes to get visas can vary hugely. Chris Webber, manager of Visa World, says: "I can get you a visa for China in four hours or it can take up to four days, whereas the Sudan takes six weeks. And if you want to go to the US it could take three to four months because of the interviews."

You don’t always have to get a visa before you leave the UK though, as Visa Swift’s Carnell says: "If you are going to Egypt you can get a tourist visa on arrival – the only problem is you have to wait three hours to get it and you can only pay in American dollars. So you have to decide what is easier – get it beforehand or when you are there."

The cost of visas depends on the embassy you are applying to, the type of visa you require and the amount the visa service provider or TMC is charging on top. Visas can range from £12 for some of the small African countries to £200 or more for a multiple-entry five-year visa to Nigeria. If a country is making the application process more difficult, many companies charge an additional charge on top of the standard fee, but once things become easier they tend to knock the supplement on the head.

Depending on which company you use, the price of a visa can be reduced if a number of employees are travelling together. At Visa World, the standard service charge is £40 plus the cost of the visa, but you pay 25 per cent less if there are two people and up to 75 per cent less if there are seven.

While the visa application process can be a nightmare if you attempt it independently, even if you go through a visa service provider you can occasionally get turned down. If you are applying for a visa to Saudi Arabia, they won’t let you in if you are Jewish, and it can also be very difficult if you are a woman. Even if you are neither, but have an Israeli visa in your passport, you can expect to have your application rejected – which is another reason for holding a second passport.

Although being turned down for a visa is relatively rare, sometimes embassies will reject an application for less predictable reasons. Tumbridge of BCD Travel says: "It could be that something in the documentation was not what the embassy was looking for, or it could be – and this has happened – that the embassy has received an unexpected number of applications and they will reject purely on the basis of volume, indiscriminately."

There is no hard and fast rule why rejections occur, but ultimately most embassies want to make money and attract tourists and business travellers, so long as it is possible to get the necessary paperwork for them. Some countries, however, either for border-control or political reasons, still insist on making the process difficult. At present, the most difficult visas to apply for are those for India, China and Russia – ironically, these are also the most popular for travellers with UK passports.

Tumbridge says: "Indian visas are difficult to get hold of at the moment simply because of the volume. Last summer there were a number of redundancies at the embassy after a general decline in applications – that was almost timed with a surge in applications at a level they didn’t expect. This means the physical ability to turn around applications has become more difficult."

In the run-up to the Olympics, China has been making entry more problematic for travellers by making requirements much more stringent. They now demand your application gets an official seal of approval from the Chinese government, consequently allowing them to restrict the number of people entering.

But it is not always the embassies that cause the problems. Occasionally, the impact of world events can have a knock-on effect on the visa application process. CIBT’s Hefner, who has been in the business for 22 years, says: "If there is ever a downturn like the Gulf War, SARS or 9/11, when travel suddenly plummets and people stop going abroad, smaller visa services may not weather the storm. There is always a chance that a company will close its doors and your passport will be behind those doors."

With the burgeoning use of online visa services, however, the application process is becoming far easier. Travellers can see in seconds what requirements each country has, how much the visa will cost, select which kind of visa they need and order the application forms. In fact some embassies are moving away from handwritten to online forms. Visa Express’s Chilcott says: "Russia, Syria and Kyrgyzstan are doing it at the moment – you just fill it in online, submit it and then we go to the embassy with your passport and everything and match it up." And you will never need to queue again.

Most popular visas for UK business travellers

CHINA
INDIA
RUSSIA
KAZAKHSTAN
NIGERIA
USA
SAUDI ARABIA
IRAN
AUSTRALIA

Useful contacts

Visa Swift visaswift.com
Visa World visaworld.co.uk
Visa Express visaexpress.co.uk
Trailfinders visas.trailfinders.com
CIBT thamesconsular.com
Global Visas globalvisas.com
BCD Travel bcdtravel.co.uk
Carlson Wagonlit carlsonwagonlit.com