AS A rule, hitching a lift into Australia is no easy task, and one that is likely to get you into trouble with immigration officials.

Unless you are brown, about one eighth of an inch in length and come from the Cimex family of insects. Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus, better known as the common and tropical bed bugs, are entering Australia by hitching rides on luggage, clothing and people.

The problem has become so great that the Australian tourism industry fears it could lose up to A$100 million (£43 million) as backpackers are deterred by the pests.

“I can say from my own experience they are everywhere,” said Christine, 26, from Germany, who works in a backpacker’s hostel in Perth, Western Australia. “It is worse on the East Coast and Queensland. But they’re all quite the same: really beastly.”

Across the country, there are reports of blood-spotted bed sheets and backpackers bearing itchy welts. Travellers tell tales of others who have been attacked, including one story about a man who had to take antibiotics after bed bugs laid eggs in his arm.

A tourism group in Queensland is so worried by the infestation that it has called a meeting to look at ways to fight back.

Stephen Doggett, a medical entomologist at Westmead Hospital, in Sydney, said that one solution would be to use insecticides.

“In the past motels were routinely treated with insecticides, whereas that doesn’t happen any more, and insecticide treatments are far more environmentally appropriate and friendly,” he told ABC radio. He said that other pests such as cockroaches were controlled using baits but that these could not be used to control bed bugs because they fed on blood.

Bed bugs usually nest in mattresses and bed sheets or under floorboards and carpets. They travel by creeping into clothing, luggage and sleeping bags. Some hostels have banned sleeping bags and insist on fresh bed sheets. Many hotels have, however, refused to accept the blame for poor hygiene, saying that the insects come and go with their guests.

From September 2004 to September last year, 5.5 million tourists visited Australia, many of whom had travelled through developing countries.

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