From the 9th September it will cost $14 to get your Esta (officially an “Electronic System for Travel Authorisation”) – which is the absolutely necessary form required if you want to visit the United States from a visa waiver country.
The fee has been introduced to fund a programme which aims to promote tourism in the US and attract foreign spending. BBC News
So people who are already visiting the United States will be encouraging other people to visit. Makes sense, that’s more or less what should be happening isn’t it?
Happy visitors tell their friends. Very happy visitors retell stories over and over until we’re bored to death, but also brainwashed into accepting that yes, their holiday must have been really great. We’re encouraged to go and visit places based on these recommendations. Technology has made it even easier (and dare I say, less annoying) — facebook & twitter updates saying how good a trip was are wonderful promotion: “New York is amazing”, “so happy after trip to Grand Canyon”, “just saw the Hollywood sign, so excited” — holiday envy aside, we’re happy to read that our online friends are happy. These days people are even able to share hundreds of holiday photos without losing friends, we can ignore the endless “me in front of X, Y & Z” but still be inspired by photographs of the places visited, tempted to one day go visit them ourselves.
But from September, instead of this traditional word of mouth promotion, visitors to the US will be paying a fee to help promote the country. It feels almost insulting, thanks for visiting us but you’re not enough, we want you to bring others too. You’re not doing a good enough job on your own to encourage other tourists so we’re going to take your money and do it our way. It makes me think that the people who are visiting the US don’t have good stories to tell …
On the other side it’s rather egotistical to force every visitor into promoting tourism to your country. If you’ve had a poor trip, left the United States with bad experiences and feel you’d rather not recommend a visit to anyone well tough, you’ve already paid the $14 to help promote the country whether you like it or not. Your fourteen dollars will be working with all the rest to say how wonderful America is, come visit us. That’ll be some kick in the teeth.
