The number of tourists coming to Hawai'i fell 4.7 percent last month compared with March 2002, with international arrivals falling 12.3 percent and domestic arrivals down 1.3 percent, according to the figures released by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism today.

The number of Japanese visiting the state fell 16 percent in March due to the war with Iraq, "We would expect that international visitor arrivals will continue to be slow over the next few months but we believe that the visitor arrivals from the U.S. Mainland will remain steady," said DBEDT Director Ted Liu.

The decline in total visitor arrivals is not as severe as the 5.7 percent decline in the month that the Gulf War began in 1991 and the 32.5 percent drop after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

About 385,803 domestic visitors came to Hawai'i last month, down from 390,753 in March 2002. U.S. East visitor arrivals were up 2.7 percent, while U.S. West figures were down 5.1 percent.

The number of Japanese visitors fell to 103,009, down from 122,633 last year.

"The Japanese are still a pretty grim picture," said Outrigger Enterprises Inc. Chief Executive David Carey.

The declines are troubling for the tourism industry because the figures are even lower than the period last year when travel was still languishing from the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

What provided a slight boost to tourism during the month was that the visitors who did came stayed longer, which is typical of recession periods because people tend to take fewer vacations that last longer.

Visitors' average length of stay increased 6.4 percent to 9.37 days, which helped push the total number of days all visitors spent in Hawai'i up 1.4 percent. Visitor days is considered a good indication of how much tourism contributes to the economy through visitor spending.

O'ahu had the largest decline in visitors, with a 11.3 percent drop from last March, including an 8.5 percent decline in domestic arrivals and a 15.4 percent decline in international arrivals.

The Big Island also had a decline of 4.3 percent. Meanwhile, visitor arrivals were up in Maui (1.7 percent), Kaua'i (1.5 percent), Moloka'i (5.3 percent) and Lanai (29.1 percent).

"I was a little surprised that O'ahu was down," even for domestic visitors, Carey said.

While fewer people came on flights to Hawai'i, the number of cruise ship visitors increased 28.9 percent to 24,879 passengers. Those visitors spent an average of 4.4 days on board and 2.72 days on the Islands.