Jaunted.com, the pop culture travel site, wrote an article the other day about a Chinese real estate company that is hosting “foreclosure tours” for Chinese residents looking for recession bargains on U.S. home prices. I’m sure this kind of thing has always happened, but now it has a catchy name: Recession Tourism.

I’ve been reading a bit about recession tourism recently, a phrase apparently coined by Matt Landau of The Panama Report last month. He claims that the recession may actually help the growing Panama real estate and tourism markets, since North Americans are searching for budget options and Panama has them to spare. This sounds like wishful thinking, but he may be right. An article in The Guardian less than three weeks ago lamented the crushing blow the recession is having on the ecotourism industry, but qualifies with this, “Ronald Sanabria directs the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable tourism certification program, which focuses on Central and South America. Participants in his program have not yet seen a measurable negative effect from the recession, he said.”

So for those of you who are considering buying in Panama, your timing might be just right.