United States considering $10 "tourist fee" to pay for promoting tourism

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I'll have to check the notes I made at the time to be sure, but I do recall when ESTA was launched being told there would be a fee in future. It hasn't taken long (ESTA went live mid January 2009 after a soft launch last year).

The laughable thing is USA still insists ESTA isn't a visa. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, then it is a duck.

As well as tourism promotion the fee apparently will be partly used to educate visitors how to complete the ESTA process. If it is that hard that non-Americans need educating then it should be simplified (or done away with).

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