美国对访美游客开征入境费

There are two parts of the fee. It's $14 which is a nominal fee that covers two years of travel to the United States. $4 recovers the cost of administrating a program and then there is a $10 fee to cover cost for the Travel Promotion Act.

Right, let's be that done. So $4 goes basically to run the program.

Yes.

I suppose one can't object too much about that except why should tourists pay for you to run your program?

And actually it turns out that 56 countries around the world do charge a fee to enter or exit their country. Sometimes it's hidden in hotel taxes. Sometimes it's included as a part of an airline fee when you buy your ticket. But for us, we are doing it so you directly know where the money is going and you are paying for it online. You are paying directly.

This other bit, this other $10.  How to express it here? This goes basically for the promotion of the United States as a tourist destination.

Yes. It's also to provide information to tourists. So there will be setting up a corporation that's going to provide information to everybody who is arriving in the United States.

But effectively the US is charging its incoming tourist to promote the US.

In some respects, of course, that's how we would say it.

And currently under the Visa Waiver Program, there is no fee involved.

Right, till September 8th.

Right. So there it is a quite substantial change, isn't it, for people going to the US?

Yes, but if you have an ASTA in effect already, if you've already applied and it's been approved, it's good for two years. So you don't have to worry about the fee for the next two years.

One of the biggest problems looking online that I have seen is every go to your site, there is the $14 fee that will be. But does many scam sites, not even scam sites, just people who will charge me a fee to do some that I don't even need.

Yes, and we've actually been recommending that everybody goes to a .gov website. So if you go to the CBP.gov website, you will be up to be linked directly to the ASTA process. You can go through. We've also been working very closely with the airline industry. We've provided links directly from the Airlines Websites so all the major airlines and more smaller airlines have created a situation where you can go on, you can make your reservation and link in directly to our website.

Because some people are now charging quite large fees for doing something that's actually...

Yes, today is free and after September 8th, it will be $14. So that's one of the reasons I am here. We're trying to get the word out to everybody so they know. It's just a $14 fee and you can go directly to the US website to fill out the information, very simple, usually takes you a few couple of minutes. Over 99% of the people are approved very quickly. And they can travel to the US for two years, multiple times.