Hawai'i visitor arrivals continued growing at a record pace last month, despite a dip in the number of Japanese tourists.

The state's No. 1 industry welcomed 591,503 visitors in October, up 5.1 percent over the same month last year. This was the best showing ever for October, topping the record set last year.

Total visitor expenditures last month also grew 6.8 percent year-over-year to $940.6 million.

But while the number of Mainland and Canadian tourists increased, Japanese visitor arrivals fell 4.9 percent to 129,247. That's partly because Japan Airlines suspended two of its eight daily flights from Japan to Hawai'i last month. Some in the tourism industry have also blamed a weaker yen and difficulty finding hotel rooms.

"They've had a very, very hard time getting rooms just because there has been no room at the inn, so to speak," said Hawai'i Tourism Authority president and CEO Rex Johnson. "And then the dollar has become substantially stronger against the yen in the second half of the year."

But Johnson said demand for Hawai'i trips is still strong in Japan, and Yujiro Kuwabara, general manager in customer service for Japanese travel agency JTB in Hawai'i, cited "huge group business" from Japan this month.

Overall, visitors' average length of stay rose slightly by 1.1 percent, but the growth in arrivals boosted visitor days by 6.2 percent.

Growth in spending per person daily was up 0.5 percent over October last year, and spending per trip was up 1.6 percent.

"As 2005 becomes the new benchmark year for the visitor industry, our focus must be on maintaining the strength and vitality of Hawai'i's core economic driver," said state Tourism Liaison Marsha Wienert. "This includes the private sector's efforts to improve our visitor industry plan, as well as the state's investments in upgrading infrastructure such as airports, harbors, parks and roads."

The state projects 7.4 million air and cruise visitors this year, beating the record set last year of 6.99 million. (The record for air visitors alone is 6.95 million in 2000.)

The 591,503 visitors last month include 29,659 people who flew here to board Hawai'i home-ported cruise ships, a 35.6 percent increase over the previous October. An additional 13,811 visitors arrived here on out-of-state cruise ships, up 1.7 percent.

Every island saw more tourists last month compared to October last year, and all but Lana'i enjoyed higher visitor expenditures.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.