Travelling to the other side of the world is not always easy. Changing identification requirements, different directives for each country, complex regulations: how do you find your way around when you travel? This is where Sherpa comes in. To facilitate your customers‘ travel around the world by providing them with the information they need to cross borders in complete security. Let’s take a closer look at this solution, which is a must-have for your travel offer.
With Sherpa, your customers will thank you
Founded in 2015 by Max Tremaine and Ivan Sharko, Sherpa is a Canadian start-up with one dream: to create a world where people don’t have to worry about borders. Indeed, organising a trip can be a real headache. This start-up’s goal is clear: to make it easier for your customers to travel internationally so that they no longer have to worry about the administrative elements of each country. Specialising in the travel technology sector, the Canadian start-up enables travel agencies and airlines to integrate all travel arrangements into their offering through its intuitive API, a white-label web application and integrated widgets.
Specifically, Sherpa allows its clients to integrate entry requirements, Covid-19 health requirements and eVisas into its system as ancillary services. To do this, the start-up uses 2,000 information sources from government agencies. The extracted data is reliable, automatically updated and relayed in real time to your users. Then, for individuals, the start-up makes available on its website the necessary information about visas and government restrictions. This makes it easier to understand and apply for travel to each country.
A promising future for the start-up
In 2019, the UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) states that 1.46 billion people in the world travel. Every year this number increases. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the sector. As a result, new country-specific health regulations have been put in place. Travelling has become more difficult and your customers will not deny it. Compulsory health pass, PCR test of less than 48 hours, quarantine on arrival, not easy for your travellers to manage. Sherpa quickly understood this and integrated the health regulations necessary for travel planning into its product offering. Since then, the company has experienced strong growth and major players in the travel industry have called on its services. The goal: to relieve their clients’ travel planning.
Partners
In April and June 2021, the Airbnb platform and the Expedia group called on the Sherpa provider so that their travellers could keep up to date in real time with all the rules in force for each destination. After a study, the Expedia group recorded a 25% increase in business compared to the time before the pandemic. As quoted in the Airbnb press release “The integration of Sherpa into our platform is a resource for our community that will help support the return of international travel in the coming months”.
Many airlines have also turned to the Canadian start-up to improve their customers’ travel planning. These include American Airlines, British Airways, Condor and many others. The way it works is simple: Sherpa integrates an auxiliary resource that allows the ordering of a visa directly after the purchase of an airline ticket on the same platform. These major airlines have chosen to work with Sherpa in order to benefit from an ancillary revenue service while improving the customer experience.
Our customers were frustrated by hard-to-understand immigratoin and consulate websites. Withe Sherpa, we are now able to offer our customers a seamless and hassle-free travel experience all on one platform : our website.
Matthias Knobloch, International Marketing Manager B2C AT CONDOR
Competition
In 2019, the Canadian start-up is flying to Dubai and participating in the travel and tourism industry-focused incubator programme Intelak. The programme is run by partners from Emirates and the Dubai Department of Tourism and Marketing. From over 100 applicants, Sherpa is selected to participate in a week-long pre-incubation boot camp. After 4 months of challenge, Sherpa won the first prize with four other start-ups. The following year, Sherpa won the People Choice Award in the Travel and Hospitality category from the Californian firm Plug and Play. Thus, the international competitions in which Sherpa has participated have undoubtedly accelerated its development and visibility on the international scene.
Who knows, maybe one day, in order to broaden its offer, Sherpa will propose via its API the different public and private transport modes available in the city as well as their information in real time in order to embark with peace of mind.
