Hawai'i appears headed for a brighter Golden Week than expected as officials tracked an increase in the number of Japanese visitors arriving since Friday to spend the national holiday in the Islands.

That trend is positive but not record-breaking, according to state economist Pearl Imada Iboshi.

"It looks like it's OK news from these numbers," she said.

As head of research and economic analysis for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, Iboshi yesterday was poring over statistics for arrivals from Japan for Friday through yesterday.

Since Japan is almost a day ahead of us, she got an extra day of analysis. "For those four days, it's about a 4 percent increase and a little less than 1,000 visitors more than last year," she said.

After months of sagging visitor arrival numbers from Japan, tourism officials tend toward the cautiously optimistic.

And Japan Travel Bureau last month had projected a lackluster Golden Week — which officially runs April 25 to May 5 and lasts for more than a week. The bureau's Travel Trends report had projected the number of Japanese overseas travelers to be 548,000, down 0.7 percent from last year.

Those analysts predicted that would mean that travelers who can some years squeeze more than a week of vacation out of the holiday timing might only get four consecutive days off this year and opt for shorter trips to Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong or Taiwan.

And economist Iboshi was quick to point out that last year's Golden Week number of Japanese travelers to Hawai'i had been down from previous years.

"We've been hearing pretty much mixed news — that it's better than last year probably — but it's not exceptional, and last year was not a good one," she said.

Over at Ala Moana Center, the news also seemed a bit brighter.

At Diesel, the trendy urban boutique saw business starting to pick up yesterday, which started a little slower than last year, according to assistant manager Marc Araki. "Last year it started by the weekend before," Araki said. He said there's nothing subtle about the rush in business, which brings in all ages of shoppers buying a variety of clothes and bags.

"Usually, it's like Christmas," Araki said. "It started getting really busy today."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.