Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka rose by 13.7 per cent in October year-on-year, the increase coming mostly from India and China, official statistics showed on Tuesday.

Indian tourist arrivals were 36,471 in October, a 19.3 per cent increase, Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 20,000 Chinese tourists arrived last month, up 19.8 per cent from the same period last year.

Overall, Sri Lanka received 150,419 visitors last month and tourist arrivals in the first 10 months of this year have risen 14.6 per cent to over 1.65 million.

The number of tourists from traditional markets such as Germany also rose 26.5 per cent to 12,246 while the numbers from Britain were up 10 per cent to 10,964.

An estimated 1.8 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka last year.

The government expects to attract at least 3 million tourists by the end of this year and it has set a target of 4 million by 2020.