While surfing through Tourism New Zealand's online research database (why do supposedly "competing" destinations publish their strategic plans and research for all the world to see?  This doesn't happen in any other industry), I came across an entertainingly opinionated and cranky paper written by Neil Leiper of Southern Cross University, Australia.

In it, he takes issue with the title of a research programme launched by Australia's Co-operative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism.  The programme is called "Destinations: The Heart of Tourism" and Mr. Leiper goes on to list 6 reasons why the very name of the programme might lead to disastrous results for tourism.

In his argument, he references everything from water dowsers to the electro-magenetic attraction power of an Indian shrine and the intricacies of human anatomy.  It all makes for a very amusing read on a rainy afternoon.

My favorite line: "there is no evidence that any destination ever attracted, in a literal sense, any tourists."

Check it out here.