Travel Visa Pro Turns 20 and Passes 1 Million Travel-Document Cases

Two Decades in, the Company Says Digital Entry Rules Have Moved Travel Paperwork Online but Haven’t Made it Simpler

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Travel Visa Pro, a people-powered travel-document expediting company serving businesses, institutions, service-provider partners and travelers with urgent or complex needs nationwide, is marking its 20^th anniversary after completing more than 1 million travel-document cases spanning 195 countries. What began as a small visa and passport service in San Francisco in 2006 now operates nine offices in eight major U.S. cities—Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco (two offices), Seattle and Washington, D.C. and more than 200 Travel Visa Pro Authorized Locations nationwide.

Those two decades track a fundamental shift in how people cross borders. In 2006, a travel visa usually meant a paper application, a consulate window and an ink stamp. Today, e-visas, electronic travel authorizations and digital arrival cards have moved much of that process online. Yet consular visas, urgent U.S. passports, apostilles and legalizations still depend on original documents being reviewed, submitted, retrieved and delivered in person, often against a looming departure date.

“Twenty years ago, our goal was simple: No client should ever miss their trip. That’s still the standard,” said Kestutis “Kest” Gregeris, founder, owner and CEO of Travel Visa Pro. “What’s changed is everything around it. AI can fill out a form in seconds, but someone still has to stand at the consulate window, get critical travel documents to the right city before the flight leaves and answer the phone at midnight when something goes wrong. That’s the work we’ve spent 20 years getting right.”

Travel Visa Pro’s operating model is built for those moments. Every case is assigned a dedicated order manager, application specialists review documents before anything is submitted and originals move through controlled handling procedures with clear accountability at each step. The company is also registered with five U.S. Department of State regional passport agencies, where it hand-carries applications for qualifying urgent travelers, and its team works around the clock because travel-document emergencies don’t keep business hours.

The people running that model have stayed close to the cases. Mindaugas “Min” Smuikys joined in 2009 as the company’s first employee, helped open its second location in Washington, D.C., and now serves as director of government and consular relations. Gregeris remains personally involved in helping travelers navigate urgent travel-document challenges as well. Recently, when clients connecting through Shanghai to India were unable to access their India e-visas at the airport, Gregeris stepped in after hours to retrieve the documents from their Travel Visa Pro order and send them directly to the travelers so they could continue their journey. The incident underscores how even fully digital travel documents can require hands-on, around-the-clock human support.

Today, corporate travel teams, universities and other institutions rely on Travel Visa Pro to take recurring visa and passport work off their desks, while service-provider partners such as digital travel platforms use it to handle in-person fulfillment behind the scenes. Individual travelers turn to the company when their situation is complicated, nuanced or time-sensitive and there’s too much riding on the trip to risk getting it wrong. That track record has earned Travel Visa Pro an A+ Better Business Bureau rating dating to 2009 and a 4.8-star Trustpilot rating across more than 4,000 reviews.

“International travel isn’t getting simpler; the requirements are just moving to new places,” added Gregeris. “Every new digital rule is another way for a trip to go sideways. As we head into our third decade, we’re expanding our corporate programs and partner network so more travelers have experienced people in their corner when it counts.”

To learn more about Travel Visa Pro and its services, visit www.travelvisapro.com.

About Travel Visa Pro: Travel Visa Pro is a people-powered travel-document execution company serving businesses, institutions, service-provider partners and travelers with urgent or complex needs nationwide. Founded in 2006, the company has handled more than 1 million travel-document cases and operates nine offices in eight major U.S. cities, complemented by more than 200 Travel Visa Pro Authorized Locations nationwide. Its model combines dedicated case management, specialist review and hands-on document fulfillment for travel-document needs spanning 195 countries. Headquartered in Houston, Travel Visa Pro is a private company and is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of State or any government agency. Learn more at www.travelvisapro.com.

Editor’s Note: Gregeris and the Travel Visa Pro team are available to discuss how travel documents have changed over 20 years and what new digital entry requirements mean for travelers and businesses. They can also share findings from Passport Pulse, the company’s recurring data series drawn from anonymized orders, which shows nearly half of rush passport customers are less than 10 days from their planned international travel when they place their order.