Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif chaired a meeting Thursday at the Smart Village on tourism development.

During the meeting, Nazif listened to a report by Minister of Tourism Zuheir Garana on a plan by his ministry for increasing incoming tourism and number of tourist nights.

The plan, which comes within the framework of President Hosni Mubarak's electoral platform, aims at increasing the number of incoming tourists to 14 million by 2011 versus the current 8.6 million tourists.

The plan also targets increasing the number of tourist nights and hotel capacity from 85.5 million tourists and 175,000 rooms to 140 millions and 240 millions respectively, the report said.

Cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi said Garana reviewed during the meeting his ministry's strategy, highlighting the importance of tourism which represents 18% of hard currency going into the state's coffers.

Garana said tourism represents 41% of service exports and 11% of gross domestic product (GDP).