ESTA to boost American tourism and travel promotion

The act lays out plans to fund a new body to promote tourism to the country, the first national tourism body, through a nominal charge for the ESTA for overseas tourists.

The American ESTA is a travel authority that allows those from countries in the Visa Waiver Program authorization to enter America for a short stay for business or tourism purposes.

The travel promotion body, Corporation for Travel Promotion, could attract some 1.6 million additional visitors to America and create more than US$4 billion in consumer spending a year, and will with the US departments of Commerce, Homeland Security and State to develop a nationally co-ordinated tourism marketing program.

Part of the responsibilities of the corporation will also to promote and explain changing travel security policies.

The corporation comes at a time when America has seen a drop in overseas visitors, with 2.4 million fewer overseas travellers in 2009 than in 2000.

The American Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people make American Visa applications to the American Embassy.