According to the World Tourism Organization, the global phenomenon for which it's named generated $852 billion in 2009. What's more, this figure promised to promptly rise by some 7% based upon tourist arrivals for the first months of notoriously-economically-depressed 2010 according to latest figures.

 All of which just gives credence to the idea that people want to get away from it all. And as the above numbers show –that’s becoming more and more the case.

 But to where do all these garden-gnome-lugging hordes escape? Well, in recent years, France, the United States and Spain have been the most popular places to which to get away. Of course that leaves lots of other destinations out there that also promise a release from humdrum existence. So let’s just say that – alphabetically from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, longitudinally from Greenland to Australia, elevation-ally from Tibet to Yemen, and desirably from Nepal to North Korea or the prohibitive parts of Pakistan, countries want tourists and their funny-looking lucre. Well, maybe not Nepal so much -- it's pretty cool; but for most of these – near-heaven or total-hellhole -- there’s a tourist board.

It's the tourist board's function to promote travel to its host country, region, city, province or state. This is generally done by buying advertising, garnering publicity, putting together special programs with hotels and other interests that stand to benefit from tourism, and coming up with deals that appeal to particular groups like bird watchers, cafe loungers, spelunkers or stalkers of the wild Seychelles Sheath-tailed bat. After all, getting to where you're free from it all is far from free.