More tourists are visiting the Hawaiian Islands, but they are creating less economic benefit.

Visitor arrivals in March grew nearly 4% from the prior year to 939,064, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. March arrivals increased from the U.S. East, the U.S. West and Canada. Visitor arrivals from Japan were flat but dropped for cruise ships and the category called “other,” which includes international arrivals from outside Canada and Japan.

March visitor spending fell more than 2% to $1.5 billion as every major market posted either flat or declining results. On average, visitors spent $1,604 per trip, a drop of 6% from March 2018.

“Everyone gets caught up in the 10 million visitor arrivals benchmark, but that’s irrelevant. What really counts is driving spending,” said Keith Vieira, principal at KV &Associates Hospitality Consulting. “Over the long run, success means bringing higher-spending people to Hawaii, not increasing arrivals.”

The monthly results set the tone for the quarter, which saw visitor arrivals increase nearly 3% to more than 2.5 million visitors as more tourists came from every major market except cruise ships and the “other” category.

At the same time, spending declined to just over $4.5 billion, a more than 2% drop from the first three months of 2018. While cruise ship visitors spent more during the first quarter of 2019 than they did in the first quarter of 2018, quarterly spending fell in almost every market save for the U.S. West, which was flat. The average per-person cost of a trip to Hawaii during the first quarter was $1,777, down nearly 5% from the same period in 2018.

There were mixed results across the islands. On Oahu, visitor spending and arrivals increased in March and for the quarter. On Maui, monthly and quarterly arrivals increased while spending decreased. Arrivals and spending dropped in March and for the quarter on Kauai and Hawaii island.

Total air capacity rose nearly 2% to nearly 1.2 million seats in March and over 1% to 3.3 million seats during the first quarter.

Frank Haas, president of Marketing Management, said one of the challenges is that current numbers are being measured against last year, which was the top first quarter on record.

HTA board member Sean Dee said another issue is that hotel use continues to drop while use of vacation rentals, which typically produce less visitor spending, keeps climbing.

“We had an increase in visitors and the worst performance in hotel occupancy in 10 years,” Dee said.

Vieira believes Hawaii’s visitor industry, especially hotels, could continue to experience softness at least into June.

However, “Super Golden Week,” a rare 10-day period of consecutive national Japanese holidays, is expected to bolster Oahu and Big Island numbers some. Hawaii Tourism Japan Managing Director Eric Takahata said major tour companies and legacy air carriers are reporting double-digit gains for the period, which starts Saturday and runs through May 6.

“Everyone is happy — the hotels, the wholesalers, the airlines,” Takahata said. “The first five days are the busiest, although there’s some space on the back end.”

Takahata said a Big Island marketing campaign that began last month to address softening from Japan that followed last year’s prolonged volcanic eruption is expected to improve in the second and third quarters.

Haas said he’d also like to see HTA and the state’s visitor industry focus more on drawing higher-spending visitors to Hawaii.

“We could market more to corporate meetings, incentive travel, bridal and the LGBTQ community,” Haas said. “There’s research- based evidence showing that these are higher-spending markets that tend to stay in full-service hotels.”