Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka rose by 16 percent in November compared with the same month in 2015 with India and China remaining the leading markets, statistics from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority showed on Wednesday.

China recorded a 10.5 percent growth on a year-to-year basis as over 18,000 tourists visited Sri Lanka in November, while India recorded a 2.5 percent growth from the same month last year, with over 30,000 visitors arriving, Xinhua reported.

In total over 1.8 million tourists have arrived in the island country this year and the government has said it hopes to achieve a target of at least 2 million tourists by year end.

In November alone, 167,217 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka, a 16 percent rise from the 144,147 the same month last year.

China, which has become the second largest source of tourists to Sri Lanka, has helped improve the island nation's tourism industry once heavily scarred by a 30-year civil war between the government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels which ended in May 2009.

Last year, Sri Lanka attracted 200,000 Chinese tourists.

The Sri Lankan government has set a target of attracting 4 million tourists by 2020.