Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals grew by 6.2 percent in May, compared to the same month last year, with over 129,000 tourists visiting the island country, statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed on Tuesday.

India, China, Britain, Germany and Australia were the top five markets generating the highest number of arrivals.

Almost 96.7 percent of tourists travelled by air to Sri Lanka.

China, which was within the top three markets, had 17,103 tourists visiting Sri Lanka in May.

This year, Sri Lanka has already recorded 115,870 Chinese tourist arrivals to the island country.

Overall tourist arrivals this year has been over 1 million with the government targeting a 2.5-million tourist arrival by the end of the year.

In a bid to attract more Chinese travelers, Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said last month that the Sri Lankan government had signed an agreement with a leading Chinese tour operator.

Amaratunga said China is an important destination for Sri Lankan tourism and the government hopes to attract over 300,000 Chinese tourists this year.

The minister said the government will target a revenue of 4.4 billion U.S. dollars through its tourism sector this year.