The December 2009 increase in arrivals was the seventh straight monthly rise in arrivals.
It followed the end of the ethnic war in May 2009 and easing of travel advisories by key tourist generating markets like Britain against their citizens in traveling to Sri Lanka.
The tourist arrivals from Western Europe rose 15.6 percent to 19,962 in December 2009 from a year ago with arrivals from the UK up 12.1 percent to 8,726, France up 31.6 percent to 1,833 and Germany up 13.2 percent to 3,614.
In South Asia, the number of Indian tourist arrivals rose from 49.6 percent to 10,418.
Overall, number of tourist arrivals from South Asia in December went up 22.1 percent to 15,339 although there was an 18.1 percent decrease in arrivals from the Maldives to 3,924.
India was the biggest source of tourists for the second year running although