Hawai'i greeted more visitors last month than the previous March and they spent more, too, welcome news to a visitor industry worried about recent declines in the number of tourists for the state's No. 1 industry.

Total arrivals grew 4.2 percent from last March to 659,478, with the number of days visitors spent here edging up 1.1 percent, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reported yesterday. However, arrivals from Japan continued to trend downward, declining 4 percent from the previous March.

"We still remain very, very concerned" about the Japan market, said Ed Hubennette, Marriott International's vice president for Japan, Hawai'i and the South Pacific.

He said those Japanese numbers have dropped because of a combination of factors: airline rates, seat availability, exchange rate and a fuel surcharge that tacks on nearly $200 to the price of each plane ticket.

Hubennette said the Hawai'i Tourism Authority needs another concerted marketing push for the Japan market to counteract the sharp decline. "Looking forward, we're not that optimistic that it's going to improve any time suddenly," he said.

Visitor spending pushed up 4.1 percent to $1 billion in March. That calculated to visitors spending an average total of $175 each day, up from $170 per person last March. And visitor spending went up for the first quarter of this year, with average spending up to $178 per person.

The number of visitors from Canada also went down — 1 percent.

But there was strong growth from the U.S. West — a climb of 14.1 percent over a lackluster March 2006. That month sagged below normal months when both Easter and spring break fell into April of last year.

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert saw some reason for both optimism and concern in the March numbers: "It's a good month — we're enjoying it."

Wienert was especially pleased with the double-digit increase in the number of visitors from the U.S. West Coast. "We're very optimistic as we move forward," she said.

But Wienert kept a wary eye on the 9 percent drop in the number of people visiting for conventions. "That's huge, especially for O'ahu," she said. "It's profound."

Hubennette said Hawai'i is seeing some fallout from the increased competition from other warm-weather destinations such as Mexico and the Caribbean. Not facing bad weather this year, those destinations are more successful in attracting travelers.

He said visitors are impressed with renovations in the Islands including the revitalization of Waikiki.

But there needs to be a continuing commitment to the industry in a host of ways, Hubennette said. Those range from developing future leaders at the University of Hawai'i to investing in maintaining the quality of hotels, restaurants, beaches.

And Hubennette said that means not overstretching the community resources so "we don't build to the point where we've actually ruined the very reason we were building there in the first place."

The number of cruise ship visitors remained a bright spot, adding 48,162 visitors who flew to the state to board ships or arrived by cruise ship. That's 36.2 percent higher than last March.

Visitor arrivals were up on Kaua'i (11.2 percent); Lana'i (5.4 percent), the Big Island (3.8 percent) and Maui (1.6 percent) compared to last March.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.