Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka increased by 67 percent year-on-year in April, the monthly statistics released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said.

The number of tourists arrived in the island in April jumped to 63,835 from a 38,300, a year ago amounting to a 66.7% rise while for the first four months of 2010, the number of arrivals registered 278,959, a 40.4% increase over the previous years' total of 198,709.

Since the three-decade long ethnic conflict ended in May 2009, the number of tourist arrivals has increased steadily.

Last year 654,476 tourists visited the country and the tourism authority predicts arrivals to hit a new record of 700,000 this year. The government of Sri Lanka expects to raise the number of arrivals to 2.5 million by 2016.