The state expects Hawaii’s economy in 2017 to grow at the slowest pace in four years but projects that visitor arrivals will top 9 million for the first time ever.

In its initial quarterly forecast for 2017, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism said Wednesday it anticipates visitor arrivals will edge up 1.5 percent this year to just under 9.1 million and that visitor spending will increase 2.9 percent to $16.21 billion. If both arrivals and spending increase, it would mark the sixth straight year of records in both categories.

DBEDT said Hawaii’s economy continues to expand but at a slightly reduced rate and revised lower its growth forecast for real, or inflation-adjusted, gross domestic product this year to 1.8 percent from the 1.9 percent projection it made in November in its previous report. The last time Hawaii’s real GDP grew at a slower rate was in 2014 when it was up 0.3 percent.

The state’s forecasts for visitor arrivals and spending were also revised lower from 1.8 percent and 4 percent, respectively, given in its last report.

“The downward adjustment in Hawaii’s economic growth for 2017 was mainly due to the new projection on visitor expenditures for 2017,” DBEDT chief economist Eugene Tian said in a statement.

He said slower growth in the number of days that visitors spend in Hawaii will lead to slower growth in spending. DBEDT said it now expects visitor days in 2017 to grow by 1.4 percent over last year compared with the 2 percent that was projected in its last report.

“We will see fewer or slower growth from those longer length-of-stay markets such as Oceania, Canada, Europe and U.S. West,” Tian said. “The slower growth in visitor days will lead to slower growth in visitor expenditures.”

It has been 7-1/2 years since the current economic expansion began in July 2009, and Tian said there’s still more growth ahead. He said the average length of the most recent three business cycles was nine years from trough to trough.

“It is too early to say that Hawaii’s economy is starting the contraction phase, although the growth rates are likely to be lower in the next few years,” Tian said in an email. “It is not a contraction for the following reasons: 1. The U.S. economy is still expanding and Hawaii has been following the U.S. business cycle since 2000; 2. The unemployment rate in Hawaii is still lower than the natural rate of about 4 percent.”

Through the first three quarters of last year, Hawaii’s annualized economic growth rate was 2.1 percent, higher than the U.S. economic growth rate of 1.4 percent during the same period, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. DBEDT forecasts that final numbers will show Hawaii ended 2016 with 2 percent growth, which would exceed the 1.6 percent growth that economists are projecting for the U.S.

Following the 1.8 percent projected increase for this year, DBEDT sees the state economy growing 1.7 percent in 2018 and 1.6 percent in both 2019 and 2020.

Even as growth slows, Hawaii’s economy ended 2016 at historic high levels in labor force, employment and payroll jobs. Construction, tourism, health care and professional services were the major drivers in job growth.

“Hawaii had a great year in 2016 with 14,000 new payroll jobs created,” DBEDT Director Luis Salaveria said in a statement. “Almost every sector saw job increases except state government and wholesale trade. Our unemployment rate was the fourth lowest in the nation in 2016, and we expect our economic condition to remain stable in 2017.”

The strength in employment was tempered by gains in initial unemployment claims that began in October and clear signs that construction is slowing. At the end of 2016, the value of private building permits was down 18.2 percent, the value of commercial and industrial permits decreased 70 percent, residential permits declined 12.3 percent, and the value of additions and alterations decreased 1.7 percent.

DBEDT expects payroll jobs to grow 1.2 percent this year, the same as in its November forecast. Inflation-adjusted personal income was lowered to a 2.4 percent increase from 2.6 percent, while the inflation rate forecast was also lowered to 2.4 percent from 2.6 percent.