For instance, Ritz Carlton has a Community Footprints social and environmental responsibility programme that, among other initiatives, has hotels and their staff partnering with local organisations on children issues, hunger and poverty through mentoring, volunteering and youth training programmes.

BBC: How tourism can alleviate poverty

The other options, of working for a charity or an environmental task force, may suffer from the same low expectations as the ill-fated Community Programme in the 1980s.

ECONOMIST: Unemployment policy