‘Visa At Your Doorstep’ demand spikes, as travellers prefer personalized services

Sonia Dhayagude, Head Americas, VFS Global
Sonia Dhayagude, Head Americas, VFS Global

The Visa at Your Doorstep (VAYD) service extended by leading outsourcing and technology services provider for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide – VFS Global, has exceeded pre-pandemic levels owing to the rise in personalized services during the pandemic. Change in customer behavior towards showing greater willingness to pay a premium for exclusivity and at-home services has led to increase in VAYD applications globally by over 3 times in 2021 and over 5 times in 2022 when compared with 2020.

visa at your doorstep - VFS Global executive providing the service at home
visa at your doorstep – VFS Global executive providing the service at home

Launched in 2016, VAYD is designed to offer customers a quick, safe, comfortable, and personalized visa application submission experience while ensuring the highest standards in data protection. It’s a service that can be availed either by an individual/group or organization specifically where the documentation for processing your requirements can be met from home, or a location of your choice.

According to Sonia Dhayagude, Regional Head – Americas, VFS Global, the pandemic accelerated the demand for VAYD. “Individuals or groups preferred a more all-encompassing service that is provided in isolation. Also, universities find this as a great service catering to groups constituting sometimes 20 or sometimes even 200 where it becomes a faster, economic, and convenient opportunity. Corporates large event organizers including sporting events as well as senior citizens continue to avail this service in large numbers because of the personalized assistance and convenience of someone coming to your home, office or any other preferred location instead of you having to travel down to the center that could sometimes be far,” she says.

The other reason is that the world is looking to travel again, adds Sonia, “Measures like opening of international borders, ease of travel restrictions, and the resumption of regular international flights are bearing fruit. We have seen people applying almost 6 months in advance. This surge in travel activity has been a pleasant surprise despite the effects of the pandemic still prevalent in certain parts of the world.”

Besides individuals, universities, corporates for MICE and several such institutions for their group travel have increasingly begun opting for this service primarily to ensure a uniformity of document submission as well as ease of processing at a single location.

“VFS Global also partners with institutions or coordinators from time to time to work on part or all the services to facilitate a common group for VAYD,” says Sonia.

Sensing the evolving need for personalized services, VFS Global is bringing more of the visa application process online and to the safety of our customers’ homes. It has recently introduced the innovative Digital Document Check and Digital Application Submission services.