The news in Japan keeps getting worse before it gets better.

There are more evacuations required for people living closer to that nuclear plant, and some effects of radiation noted in water supply and vegetables and fruit.

It’s a bad situation, there’s no doubt about it.

There are ripple effects from this economically, in terms of travel and tourism worldwide.

People forget that a tourism slump in Japan doesn’t just stay in Japan. Japanese tourists spent about $13 billion last year in the U.S. or about $4,000 per visitor. They’re not going anywhere right now.

Business travel to Japan? Equally down in a slump. Airlines have not necessarily canceled their flights there, but they’re not necessarily flying full.

They’re certainly not flying full in coach. Business class is about half full. You’re going to start see, obviously, some discounts.

The smarter business travelers, believe it or not, will continue to go because places like Tokyo have not been directly affected. Indirectly? Yes. Directly? No.

You will see all sorts of incentives coming online in the next few months to encourage people to go. That, by the way, is one of the reasons to go to southern Japan right now, which has not been affected at all.

It’s no different than the advice I gave to folks going to Egypt right in the wake of the disruptions there. Same thing in terms of Jordan. Same things in terms of what just happened in Israel with the bombing of the bus station.

Smart travelers who have a world view of things who pack common sense, and a little bit of intelligence can always go at a time like this and have a great time.

For the latest news on the situation in Japan, visit our Japan travel section. To find out how it’s affecting the world, be sure to check out: Japan Earthquake Damages Tourism Worldwide.

For those of you who have been watching the news, you know what happened at the Miami airport a couple of days ago. Their fuel park—meaning where they store all their fuel for planes—basically blew up.

A huge fire knocked out all the pumps and they had to switch to manual. Manual means individual fuel trucks driving to get to the airport to refill the planes.

As a result of that, American Airlines canceled virtually all of their flights in and out of Miami, which means anything going to the [American] South and the Caribbean, and anything going further south to South America.

Also in the news, talk about being asleep at the wheel!

It happened earlier this week at the control tower at Reagan. An American flight and a United flight landing late at night, couldn’t even raise the tower on the radio. You want to know why? There was one controller up there and he was asleep.

Now this is nothing that we should be surprised about. If you saw my piece on CBS earlier in the year, you saw what we talked about. The staffing level of air traffic controllers is about 17 percent below what it should be.

Watch it here: CBS Evening News Special Report: Aviation Safety in America

That’s been the case for a while. We had that terrible fatal accident in Kentucky a couple of years ago where there was only one controller in the tower. He was distracted and never bothered to see that the plane had lined up to go off the wrong runway.

In the wake of this incident, I love this, the FAA Administer Randy Babbitt ordered a “thorough review of air traffic control staffing policies.”

You don’t need a through review.

You’re 17 percent under what you should be. The policy is you can’t have one guy working the tower. You need two.

Now to put things in perspective we’re not talking about the air traffic control tower that hands planes off in the sky to other air traffic control centers. We’re talking about the tower at Reagan Airport itself, which basically handles approach and departure and handles ground interactions.

Now, in this situation, thank God, there was not a lot of traffic in the air at midnight when both these planes were trying to land. The pilots basically did a go-around and landed on their own. But it did bring up a point which we’ve been yelling about for a long time: the staffing levels are way too low.

By Peter Greenberg for PeterGreenberg.com. Check out more entries from Peter’s Travel Detective Blog here.

Related links on PeterGreenberg.com:

• CBS News Special Report: Aviation Safety In America
• Washington’s Reagan National Airport Air Traffic Controller Allegedly Falls Asleep, Putting Planes At Risk
• Peter’s Travel Detective Blog: Travel Advice On The Japan Earthquake & Tsunami
• Japan Earthquake Damages Tourism Worldwide
• Japan travel section
• Comedy Shows In Osaka, Japan
• BNET Contrarian Traveler Blog: Major Tourism Slump Worldwide, post-Japanese Disaster