Over 270,000 Chinese tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in 2016, with China recording the strongest growth of 26.4 percent compared to the previous year, statistics from the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau showed on Tuesday.
19,318 tourists from China arrived in Sri Lanka in December while the whole year recorded 271,577 tourists.
In 2015, 214,783 Chinese tourists arrived in Sri Lanka, making China the second largest country with the most number of tourist arrivals.
India recorded a 12.8 percent growth, with 356,729 tourists arriving in Sri Lanka in 2016. In 2015, over 300,000 Indian tourists arrived in Sri Lanka.
India remains the largest market with the most number of tourist arrivals.
In total 2.05 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka last year, falling short of the expected 2.2 million tourists.
On Monday, Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga said that in 2017, Sri Lanka was expecting 2.5 million tourists.
However due to the closure of the Bandranaike International Airport, for certain hours from January to April, Amaratunga said that the number of tourist arrivals was expected to be affected.
