Colombo, July 22 - The pristine beaches in Sri Lanka's north, where a 25-year ethnic conflict came to an end two months ago following the crushing defeat of the Tamil Tigers, are getting ready to open up to tourism 'in a big way', says an official.

'Now that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is gone, we are preparing to develop Sri Lanka's north in a big way,' S. Kalaiselvam, director general of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, told IANS.

Though there were only guest houses in the region providing 50 rooms, this was set to expand in a big way in the next two years.

'In two years time, we hope to have nearly 1,000 rooms there. There is tremendous amount of interest in the private sector to develop hotels in the north as we hope to receive a large number of tourists. We are confident that the territory that lay untapped for 25 years would now be fully developed for tourism,' Kalaiselvam said.

The region - where tourism was practically non-existent - is about 1/9th of Sri Lanka's land mass.