Chinese travelers to Sri Lanka increase by 58 pct in 2012 (2)

Sri Lanka's national carrier, SriLankan Airlines has also increased flights to key Chinese cities and opened up services in Chinese as well as launched tourism pages on social media in an attempt to bump up arrivals.

In total Sri Lanka attracted 1,005,605 arrivals in 2012, which is a 17.5 percent increase.

Despite the economic downturn Western Europe still provided the highest number of tourists with U.K (114,218), Germany (71,642) and France (56,863) pulling in large crowds of tourists. In total the region was responsible for 373,063 travelers, which is a 18.4 percent increase from 2011.

Since the end of a three decade war in 2009, Sri Lanka's tourism industry has become a top foreign exchange earner with top hotel chains including Shangri-la, Sheraton and Hyatt being among resorts signing contracts to operate on the island.

According to the Central Bank earnings from tourism are expected to have increased to 1 billion U.S. dollars, which is a 24 percent increase in 2012.

The government has set a target of 2.5 million tourists by 2016 that will almost triple earnings and employ half 1 million locals in another three years.