The number of visitors to Hawai'i dipped slightly in March from the same month a year earlier, but the decline is expected to be much steeper in April when the closures of Aloha and ATA airlines are reflected in the data.

Arrivals fell by 1 percent to 666,167 in March, according to a report from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. The decline came as a surprise to some tourism officials, who had expected Easter and spring break to help boost arrivals.

Despite the overall decline in arrivals, visitor spending rose to $1.1 billion, a 4.4 percent increase over March 2007. Average daily spending rose to $180 per person in March from $175 per person the same month last year.

In addition, visitors increased the average length of their stay to nine days in March from 8.78 days the same month a year earlier. Total visitor days rose to just under 6 million, a 1.4 percent increase from March 2007.

Among the top four visitor markets, arrivals from Japan fell 11.9 percent, while arrivals from the U.S. East tumbled 8.2 percent from a year earlier. Arrivals rose 16.3 percent from Canada and 1.9 percent from the U.S. West.

The cruise ship industry began to feel the impact of NCL America downsizing its Hawai'i-based fleet.

Visitors who came by cruise ship declined 10.1 percent to 12,315 visitors, resulting in a 9.4 percent drop in total visitor days in that category compared with the same month last year.

The decrease in cruise visitors was largely due to the departure of the Pride of Hawai'i, which discontinued its interisland cruises in January. The Pride of Aloha also trimmed one tour when it changed its itinerary from seven-day cruises to 10- and 11-day cruises. NCL America plans to pull the Pride of Aloha from Hawai'i in May and redeploy it to Asia. After that, NCL America will be operating only one U.S. flagged ship here — the Pride of America.

Also, the Norwegian Wind — another ship owned by NCL — has not been in Hawai'i since April 2007.

Nonetheless, state tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said she was encouraged by parts of the report. "We are very pleased by the continued growth in total visitor spending in March and the increase in U.S. West and Canadian visitors to the state."

For the first three months of 2008, total expenditures by air visitors rose 6 percent to $3.2 billion. Contributing to the growth was a 2.7 percent increase in air arrivals to 1.8 million visitors. The average daily spending was also slightly higher at $179 per person compared with $178 per person in the first three months of 2007.

The Hawai'i Tourism Authority was working in committee meetings yesterday on a strategy for marketing the state to blunt the impact of decreased numbers of air seats and the increased airfares for those that remain, according to David Uchiyama, the agency's director of tourism marketing.

Uchiyama said the state tourism authority is especially mindful of the impact of skyrocketing fuel prices. He charted the increase from a week ago — up 0.6 percent; from a month ago, up 8.8 percent; and from a year ago, up a whopping 78.2 percent.

Those statistics alone offer "huge reasons to be concerned," Uchiyama said, pushed along by further uncertainty with other airlines closing, merging and experiencing difficulties raising questions about availability of flights and the cost.

Uchiyama said the agency has started to see some stability in airfares and will work to get the word out, especially to the Mainland U.S. and Canada.

The week after Aloha and ATA went under, round-trip airfares from the West Coast soared to $800 to $1,200 apiece, he said. That's starting to change: "We've actually seen the flights start to settle to an average of $700 to $800" from mid-June through mid-July to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose, he said.

Uchiyama said the marketing committee recommended that at least $3 million be set aside for marketing to these key areas to counter some of the speculation about scarce and expensive airline seats. The full board is expected to vote on the matter on May 7.

Once the board gives the approval that is expected, he said that a cooperative marketing effort with airlines and industry officials could begin quickly. He said the message is aimed at countering the perception that airfares are high to Hawai'i. "There are still deals out there to be found."

The DBEDT report also showed: