The Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) has urged both the Government and the Opposition to give tourism industry concerns a high priority during the federal election campaign.

The TTF says 85 operators with companies in various parts of Australia responded to its latest industry survey.

The TTF managing director, Chris Brown, says results show international tourism has slowed significantly and the domestic sector is rated as average.

He said that it is vital that Prime Minister Gillard, The Tourism Minister, Martin Ferguson and the opposition equivalents step up and talk to industry about how they are going to restore confidence, about how they are going to restore the budget of Tourism Australia to where it was before it recently got cut and about how they plan to inject a stimulus package into an industry that employs more Australians than just about any other industry in the country. Without these questions being answered how do they see the future of tourism being sustainable.

Coalition candidate for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, will be announcing his tourism policy at his campaign launch in Cairns today.

Editors Comments:  It's interesting to note that politicians don't usuually talk about tourism as an election issue, it's almost as if they take the old view of "She'll be right", well I don't think she will be! Tourism is a lifeblood industry upon which so many other industries rely and if it doesn't get back into some kind of healthy shape soon, these other industries will start to deteriorate very quickly. Before we (Port Douglas) regret staying silent on the matter, let's make sure the future of tourism is high on the election agenda.  It will be interesting to see what LNP candidate Warren Entsch had to say on the matter.  We'll report as soon as we have details.