With the backing of Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, Smartraveller is set to take off with a new print and television campaign in late November, with the underlying message to travelling Australians that if they cannot afford to buy travel insurance, they cannot afford to travel.

Using the website, www.smartraveller.gov.au, the campaign, backed by the Australian Federation of Travel Agents, has been in the planning for some time and is expecting to garner even more publicity due to Mr Rudd's role in the launch.

"This underpins your ability to sell travel insurance to customers," AFTA CEO, Jayson Westbury told Travellers Choice members at the annual shareholders conference in Singapore over the weekend.

"It is one of the better programmes the Federal Government has done for the outbound travel industry ... there will be lots of good things to come out of this campaign," he said.

The campaign will be rolled out nationally from December in line with peak outbound travel periods.

Mr Westbury advised that the AFTA board has so far been set back when for lobbying to have the question of travel insurance added to outbound passenger cards, which have also recently stopped being distributed to agencies due to "efficiency dividends".  Mr Westbury's advice to agents was to personally pick up the cards from airport check-in counters.

Due to cuts on front line customs staff, Mr Westbury warned agents that processing times in and out of Australia would most likely increase to up to 50 minutes in some instances.