The month recorded 125,044 tourists arriving in the country compared to the 113,529 arrived in May 2015.

In the first five months of this year 846,229 tourists visited the island compared to the 714,584 visited in the corresponding period of 2015, recording an increase of 18.4 percent.

Tourist arrivals from North America increased by 15.7 percent to 6,857 in May while 26,826 people visited from Western Europe registering a 9.5 percent increase in arrivals during the month. Most of the tourists came from UK (8,412), Germany (7,591) and France (3,281).

Arrivals from Eastern Europe declined by 15.7 percent with the arrival of 5,313 tourists in May 2015. Falling number of tourist arrivals from Russia by 38.3 percent to 1,756 contributed to the low number of arrivals from the Eastern Europe.

Tourist arrivals from Middle East increased 8.3 percent with the arrival of 6,005 visitors.

Tourist arrivals from East Asia increased 16.5 percent as 27,612 visited the country while arrivals from China increased 31.5 percent with 16,004 tourists arriving in the country in May 2016.

Arrivals from South Asia in the month increased by 11.0 percent with 47,120 tourists visiting the island. Of those arrived from South Asia, 34,259 were from India corresponding to an increase of 7.9 percent.

Nearly 1.8 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka last year contributing US$ 2.98 billion of earnings to the government revenues in 2015 compared to US$ 2.43 billion recorded during 2014.