Popular vacation destinations are ready to give tourists what they're looking for, all that's missing now are the tourists themselves. Photo: Marvin (PA) (flickr)

Ah, summer. A time of rest, relaxation, meticulously planned vacations ... and this year, less travel.

One June report by a UN body predicted tourism would decline by 4 to 6 percent this year — and that's before the H1N1 virus further dampened travel.

Tourism is down even in the U.S., where tourists spent more money than anywhere else in 2008. But the downturn is worse across the Atlantic, according to an August Reuters story.

On Spain's popular Costa del Sol, tourist traffic is "the worst I have ever seen it," drink seller Pedro Hervas tells The Telegraph. "There is no one on the beach. If you came here last year at this time you would not be able to get around, there would be so many cars and people."

Analysts cited in a Wall Street Journal story on the battered Mediterranean tourism industry conclude that nations have yet to see the real effects of the tourism slump on economic growth.

"We are seeing a multifaceted impact from the crisis on the tourism sector and there will be a variety of consequences," Marko Mrsnik told the Journal. "These include employment consequences, consequences on the creditworthiness of households and companies in the sector and their ability to pay their debts, and it will certainly have an impact on government revenues."

In Greece about 19,000 jobs have been lost, people in the industry told The Wall Street Journal, and economists predict the lack of tourism could cut more than a percentage point off economic growth this year. According to the same Journal article, in Italy private-sector estimates of tourism-related job losses are as high as 150,000.

Some sunlight, however, has seeped through the dreary forecasts. After Iceland's economic meltdown made their currency more affordable, tourism spiked, and has continued to grow through the summer. North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria have also welcomed more visitors. Some of them are undoubtedly vacationing on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea for a change — or rather, to save some change.

As unemployment increases worldwide, countries are looking at ways to stop the bleeding. Spain, Japan and the Czech Republic have decided to pay unemployed immigrants to return to their homelands.

Spain is offering immigrants from outside Europe an average of $18,500 in unemployment benefits to leave. The government is hoping to lower its 17.4 percent unemployment rate, the highest in Europe. Those who take the deal get 40 percent up front, 60 percent once they arrive in their countries of origin. They can't reapply for work visas in Spain for three years.

Japan is offering a one-time payment of 300,000 yen (about $3,100) to South American factory workers of Japanese descent who buy a plane ticket home, plus an additional sum for each dependent. Immigrants taking the deal agree not to "return until economic and employment conditions improve." Japan's unemployment benefits pay nearly $2,100 per month. So, unemployed immigrants could theoretically make more money without a job in Japan than they would by taking the offer to leave.

The Czech government will provide unemployed non-EU citizens with a ticket home plus 500 Euros — more if the worker has young children, reports the Wall Street Journal. When the program started, there were no restrictions on when a worker could return. On April 1, however, the Czech Republic stopped issuing work visas for five countries including Mongolia, whose citizens represent two-thirds of those in the pay-to-leave program.

Impacts on unemployment have been negligible at best. The Czech Interior Ministry says that their program has been a success: it's filled nearly 65 percent of its 2,000-person quota. Still, that number is less than 1 percent of all unemployed workers. The 4,000 people who've accepted Spain's offer is far from the government's goal of 100,000. And fewer than 400 people have applied for the program in Japan.

It seems that many immigrants are choosing to weather the economic storm where they are. Their chances of gainful employment in the country they left must not be any better.

Keeping with a UN target of committing 0.7 percent of national income to alleviating poverty and hunger, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero the prime minister of Spain has pledged 1 billion euros to strengthen food security around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the global food crisis has increased the number of hungry people to "an intolerable 1 billion."

Spain is giving a billion for a billion. Check out how other countries measure up at the Millennium Development Goals Monitor.