April showered Hawaii with more visitor arrivals, but those that came spent less than they did last year.

The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority released preliminary visitor statistics today showing that arrivals in April rose nearly 7% to 856,250 visitors while spending decreased more than 6% to just over $1.3 billion from the year-ago data.

On any given day in April in the Hawaiian islands, there were 227,768 visitors — a gain of more than 3% compared to last year. There were increases in visitors from the U.S. West — Hawaii’s core visitor market — the U.S. East, Hawaii’s largest international market Japan, and Canada. However, visitor arrivals coming to Hawaii from foreign nations outside of Japan and Canada dropped.

Kauai and Hawaii island posted decreases in visitor spending and visitor arrivals, while Oahu and Maui experienced arrivals increases and spending declines.

Trans-pacific air seats to the Hawaiian islands rose nearly 3% in April to 1,112,200. Visits from out-of-state cruise ships remained at 31, but cruise ship visitors to the islands posted a year-over-year increase of more than 7% to 106,719.

The April results contributed to a nearly 4% gain in arrivals during the first four months of the year, which rose to nearly 3.4 million visitors. Year-to-date visitor spending dropped more than 3% to more than $5.8 billion.