Hawaii’s economy is sending out mixed signals, if last month’s bankruptcy numbers are any indication.

Even with tourism on a record pace to see 10 million arrivals this year, the number of individuals and businesses in the state who sought financial protection in April soared 60.6 percent to 151 cases in reaching the highest level in more than three years, according to data released this week by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Hawaii. The number of cases easily topped the 94 filings in April 2017 and was the most in any month since there were 157 filings in March 2015.

Bankruptcy filings have now risen three of the last four months from the year-earlier period, and one-third of the way through this year are at 489, which is 63 more than through the same time frame in 2017. If the trend holds, it will end a streak of seven straight years of declining bankruptcies.

“This year bankruptcies are booming,” said Honolulu bankruptcy attorney Greg Dunn. He said he has filed half as many cases so far this year as he did in all of 2017. “They definitely have increased. Bankruptcies are making a comeback. You would think with the economy being better, bankruptcies would be down. But it looks like people are spending more and overextending themselves more, and I think that’s one of the reasons why there has been an increase in 2018.”

“It also seems like we’re getting more student loan cases,” Dunn added.

Chapter 7 liquidation — the most common type of bankruptcy — jumped 66.7 percent last month to 105 from 63 in the year-earlier period.

Chapter 13 filings, which allow individuals with regular sources of income to set up plans to make installment payments to creditors over three to five years, rose 48.4 percent to 46 from 31.

There were no Chapter 11 filings last month or in April 2017. Chapter 11 filings typically involve business reorganization.

Despite the rise in bankruptcy cases in April, state Chief Economist Eugene Tian said the spike is not consistent with other economic data.

“In economic terms, we call these kinds of things noise,” said Tian of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. “We don’t know for the whole year what will happen in the rest of the months, but it doesn’t look like the data is consistent with other economic indicators. Other indicators, like jobs, when people file bankruptcies there would be layoffs, but we didn’t see an increase in layoffs.”

Across the state, the number of cases rose in three of the four major counties from the year-earlier period and held steady in the other county. Honolulu County filings rose to 112 from 62, Hawaii County filings edged up to 13 from 12 and Maui County filings increased to 21 from 15. Kauai County filings remained at five.