Egypt's cabinet reshuffled Wednesday the board of the Higher Council for Tourism in preparation to set a new strategy to boost the country's ailing tourism sector, according to official news agency MENA.

The board of the Higher Council for Tourism will be chaired by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and include the ministers of defence, interior, military production, planning, foreign affairs, local development, international cooperation, culture, tourism, aviation, investment, finance, youth, communications, and antiquities.

The board will convene twice a year to set tourism policies, regulations and the general plan for touristic areas, as well as evaluate the sector's performance.

Egypt's tourism sector, which relies heavily on tourists from Russia, suffered a severe blow with the ban of passenger flights to Egypt following the downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015 that raised concerns about security at Egypt's airports.

Tourism revenue totalled $500 million in the first quarter of 2016, compared to $1.5 billion a year earlier, a tourism ministry adviser told Reuters in April.