Sri Lanka is looking to increase international air connectivity to priority markets from the existing 80 flights to 130 flights per day in an effort to boost tourism, a statement said Tuesday.

With the country's tourism industry recording a positive growth since the end of the island's civil conflict in May 2009, tourism officials say they now hope to have more direct flights, open skies policy, competitive landing and parking fees, incentive low-cost airlines and smoother immigration and check-in procedures.

Sri Lanka is also hoping, with public and private stakeholders, to create a "Colombo Calendar" of events which tourists can access across multiple channels.

"The main goal is to ensure Sri Lanka doubles its tourism sector earnings from the present 3.5 billion US dollars in 2016 to 7 billion US dollars by 2020," the Tourism Ministry statement said.

Last year, 2.05 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka with tourism earnings reaching an all time high of 346.98 million US dollars in July of 2016.

India and China have been the leading markets with the most number of tourist arrivals. 

Over 270,000 Chinese tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in 2016, with China recording the strongest growth of 26.4% compared to the previous year.

This year, Sri Lanka has set a target of 2.5 million tourists.

(Source: Xinhua)