SLTDA statistics have recorded 69,563 tourist arrivals in October this year while the number of arrivals in 2010 October stood at 52,370.

Overall, the arrivals in the first ten months of 2011 rose 34.2 percent to 667,569, compared to the 497,598 arrived in the same period last year.

The arrivals for January through October this year surpassed the annual tourist arrivals of 654,476 recorded in 2010.

Since the end of the war against the Tamil Tiger terrorists in May 2009, the country has seen increasing tourist arrivals every year for the past two years.

The government predicts arrivals to grow by 20 percent and hit a new record of over 780,000 this year.

Sri Lanka launched a new five-year plan under the guidance of the Economic Development Minister to boost tourism in the country. Under the plan Sri Lanka expects to raise the number of arrivals to 2.5 million and to earn annual revenue of US$ 2.75 billion by 2016.

The Economic Development Ministry with the private sector has launched a programme to double the hotel room capacity to 45,000 by 2016 over the current 22,745 to accommodate the 2.5 million arrivals by that time.