"One thousand rooms will be added and they will be in different categories," Nalaka Godahewa, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism said.
"Our statistics at end December 2010 show a total number of 14,714 rooms in the country."
In 2010 tourist arrivals were 654,000, a 46 percent rise from a year ago following the end of a 30-year war in May 2009.
The authorities are expecting 750,000 arrivals in 2011 and have a long term plan to attract 2.5 million visitors by 2015.
The anticipated increase in tourist arrivals will require an increase in the rooms available to about 35,000 - 40,000 from present levels.
"The problem is that the government is not building hotels, this has to be done by the private sector," Godahewa said.
"What we are doing is facilitating it."
The island has several five star hotel projects in the pipeline to be completed in the next 2-3 years with developers already having bought land from the government.
Hong Kong based Shangri-La is to build a 500