I had a client who informed me her husband needed a US visa (UK citizen) as he had been breathalised and got a positive reading so was arrested and fingerprinted. Blood tests showed him to be under the limit and he was not prosecuted however because he was fingerprinted by the police-he needs a visa to enter the US. I queried this as I believed that without a prosecution it wouldn't be needed but the US embassy in London confirmed this as correct.
Going back to the tourism issue and funding of advertising. There are plenty of "exciting" tourism options in the US- Ranch holidays, Whitewater rafting at the Grand Canyon, etc but go into any high street travel agency and the offerings won't extend beyond Disney, New York shopping and other fairly run of the mill types of holiday. In part this is due to the limited number of holiday companies the chain agencies will sell (and the reason I'm getting out of the business before I die of boredom and frustration) but a larger part is lack of promotion and incentive from the US tourism authorities to encourage "the chosen few" to offer more than a fraction of the options available. Holidaymakers are choosing other destinations out of lack of options and information -especially at the moment where the weak dollar could be a tool to increase tourism but is completely ignored by the US tourism funding authorities. The UK travel market is traditionally driven as a package -many consumers still want the security of booking with an agency that does it all rather than building their own holiday-but it many cases the UK travel industry is ignoring this growth area in part because the US tourism authorities won't share the financial load in promotion and education.. Everyone loses-except the holidaymaker brave enough to buck tradition and book independently on-line and many UK consumers still regard this as "unsafe" having been used to the security blanket of ABTA bonding and travel agencies.