The Australian Tourism Export Council has called on Australian banks for more help on the struggling tourism industry as industry operators revealed that they had resorted to raiding their savings and contingency funds in order to survive the worst of the global financial crisis.

Council representative Matthew Hingerty told ABC that most of the tourism operators are small businesses and will require more time to recover, as he assured banks that the industry is on its way to recovery and it will be a big boost if the two industries could work together.

Speaking before the council's symposium, former Tourism New Zealand CEO George Hickton informed some 600 delegates that Australia's tourism industry has already reached a period that could potentially usher more revenues, adding that the industry's new sales pitch "There's nothing like Australia" could potentially become effective very soon.

Mr Hingerty added that Australia could look at health tourism as a new frontier for the industry, revealing that about 5,000 tourist from Asia Pacific visit the country for medical procedures that could be unavailable in their own country.

He said that health tourism is a promising global market and the country's private health system has the ability to keep up with world standards and about 160,000 beds are available each year so the spare capacity would surely contribute to the industry.

Addressing the same conference, Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said that the industry should also train its focus on local tourism and convince Australians to spend their holiday within Australia.

He also expressed hope that European visitors will shoot up anew once the continent finally recovers from the Iceland volcano eruption, which last week has grounded numerous flights getting in and out of Europe.

Mr Ferguson urged the industry players to devise creative ways so they can convince more Australians to avail their annual leave, citing that at present "the country has 121 million days of accumulated annual leave worth $33 billion. Australians should firstly have a holiday and have a holiday here at home in Australia."