University of Vic

How UVic cut travel booking time down from 7 days to instant

Challenge

The University of Vic (UVic), a leader in biosciences, engineering, and education, serves over 10,000 students across its campuses and locations in Catalonia, Spain. With over 300 international partnerships spanning more than 40 countries, digitalizing travel management for university staff became a necessity.

These were the challenges they faced while working with two traditional agencies:

• Unsustainable wait times: Travel confirmation responses often took more than 7 days. Faculty, researchers, and administrative staff experienced additional stress due to an convoluted booking process that involved forms, emails, and multiple follow-ups.

• Overwhelming workload for travel managers: Manually managing travel for over 2,000 travelers was chaotic. Travel managers received constant calls—sometimes even on weekends—due to last-minute changes, cancellations, and other disruptions.

• Lack of visibility and control over travel: Global travel management became increasingly challenging. University leadership and procurement department lacked a clear overview of travel expenses and trip statuses, making it difficult to generate quarterly reports to evaluate travel performance and costs.

At this point, Eva Jurado Homs, Corporate Travel Manager at the University, had a clear realization: "We couldn’t go on like this."

Solution

The University of Vic immediately recognized the potential of a 100% digital solution like Perk. They were particularly drawn to the platform's integration of all services in one place, greatly simplifying travel management.

While 24% of Spanish companies were still stuck with traditional methods (source: Perk), UVic confidently chose Perk.

Results

After implementing Perk, the University of Vic completely transformed its travel management. What was once a slow, manual, and friction-filled process is now transformed into an easy, streamlined, and automated booking system.

Automation that saves time and resources

Booking confirmations that once took over 7 days are now instant for faculty, researchers, and administrative staff.

With Perk’s policies and approval system, Eva Jurado Homs can relax knowing that travel bookings comply with established travel policies without requiring intervention in over 90% of cases. This has also reduced human errors when booking or approving travel.

Complete visibility and control over travel

The Infrastructure and General Services Department can now oversee the entire travel process and the whereabouts of all travelers from a single platform—no intermediaries or delayed responses.

Perk enables automated reporting with expense breakdowns by person or department, and generates shareable expense reports. Finally, UVic leadership has access to quarterly reports and detailed graphs that facilitate strategic decision-making.

24/7 support and happier travelers

For Eva, managing last-minute changes and cancellations—which affect 79% of business travelers—is crucial, and the platform makes it quick and easy.

Perk’s integrated chat feature has revolutionized the support received during trips. With an average response time of just 15 seconds, any incident can be resolved immediately without calls or emails to agencies with limited hours.

Which Perk features does UVic use?

This is the technology that enables the University of Vic to automate and regain control of its travel:

• Access to the largest travel inventory in the industry

  Flights, accommodations, car rentals, and trains can be booked instantly at pre-negotiated rates for both local and international trips.

• Automated travel policies and approvals

  Travel policies can be created in under 2 minutes, budget limits set, and approval flows streamlined as needed.

• Real-time expense control

  All travel expenses are displayed in one place, allowing budgets to be maintained and finances optimized for future trips.

• Centralized invoicing

  Accounting and financial management are simplified with a single invoice that consolidates all travel expenses.

• Real-time travel tracking

  Teams can be located wherever they are, with records kept of all bookings, activities, transportation methods, and policy compliance.

• Duty of care and protection

  Traveler safety is ensured before, during, and after the trip. Security alerts are provided, team locations tracked on a map, and immediate responses enabled when needed.

• 24/7 support service

  Continuous support is available from real people for bookings, plan changes, cancellations, and other issues.