Hawai'i's visitor arrivals dropped 19.5 percent in September from the same month a year earlier as the slump in the state's No. 1 industry worsened, state officials said today.

A total of 461,051 visitors traveled to the state last month, according to preliminary statistics released today by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Despite the drop in arrivals, the average length of stay by those visitors rose to 9.06 days from 8.65 days last September,

Spending by visitors who arrived by air decreased 7.4 percent or $692.5 million to $8.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2008.

For the month of September 2008, total air visitor expenditures fell 15.5 percent to $770 million from the same month a year earlier.

The average daily spending by visitors was $189 per person, nearly the same as September 2007.

Among the top four visitor markets, air arrivals from Canada declined 6 percent compared with September 2007 after six consecutive months of positive growth. Visitations from the U.S. West fell 21.5 percent, second highest decline behind last month. Arrivals from the U.S. East fell 26.2 percent, the largest decrease since September 2001 (-35.3%). Japanese arrivals decreased 19.8 percent.

So far this year, the number of visitors arriving by air totaled 5,169,845, down 9.1 percent compared with the same period last year. The average daily spending was $181 per person, up slightly from $180 per person in the first nine months of 2007.