A cooling-off in visitor satisfaction levels from mostly international travelers, coupled with unfavorable exchange rates, could throw off industry growth enough to fall short of 2015 targets.

That was the warning issued to the state’s visitor industry stakeholders on Wednesday by David Uchiyama, Hawaii Tourism Authority vice president of brand management.

"As of right now, we are expecting 2015 to be slightly better than 2014, but it’s a very delicate situation," Uchiyama told those attending the Hawai’i Convention Center for the annual HTA Spring Marketing Update.

At its February board meeting, HTA set a 2015 goal of welcoming 8.6 million visitors, who would spend $15.58 billion. If the visitor industry met this aim, it would finish the year with 5.6 percent higher spending and 3.7 percent more arrivals than it attained in 2014, which was the industry’s third record-setting year in a row.

"If you were to ask many members of the visitor industry, they would tell you that these goals are aggressive," Uchiyama said. "We can’t take success for granted. The cost for oil is at an all-time low, enabling airlines to maintain and expand. If that moves in the wrong direction, we could see a drop in lift. Also, the currency exchange rate is a concern, especially, since we’re seeing lower visitor satisfaction."

Uchiyama said the overall percentage of visitors who rated their most recent trip as excellent dropped just over 2 percent to 78.5 percent during the first quarter of 2014. During that same period, satisfaction for visitors from the U.S. West rose 1.7 percent to 82.4 percent and increased by 1.6 percent to 86.3 percent from Europe. However, satisfaction fell 2 percent to 83.9 percent from the U.S. East, 4.5 percent to 80.1 percent from Canada, 5.1 percent to 75 percent from Oceania and 12.7 percent to 62 percent from Japan.

Uchiyama said the dip in satisfaction, which has continued into 2015, is a combination of pricing and service delivery.

"We are increasing our product price points without necessarily compensating the visitor with an additional experience," he said. "When vacation costs go up, so do expectations. They need to feel like they are getting good value for what they are spending."

As such, Uchiyama said visitor complaints have mounted — running the gamut from dirty hotel rooms to long waits at counters, unfriendly workers and tour buses forgetting to pick up guests. Unfortunately, the drop coincides with unfavorable currency exchange rates, which have increased the cost for many of Hawaii’s international visitors, especially Oceania and Japan.

Oceania, which includes visitors from New Zealand and Australia, has been impacted by a softening in exchange rates and a drop in consumer confidence, said Darragh Walshe of Hawaii Tourism Oceania.

Eric Takahata, of Hawaii Tourism Japan, said Hawaii’s largest international market is challenged, too.

"The yen devaluation is about a 20 percent drop so a Hawaii vacation is 20 percent more," Takahata said.

And worse, the increases are on top of what is already an expensive vacation for consumers, Takahata said. "We cost the most of any destination," he said. "The average package trip cost is $1,124 to $1,633 per person."

Last year, HTA partnered with LearningBiz, the Japan Hawaii Travel Association, and the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to offer training that was aimed at improving Hawaii’s track record with Japanese customers. While Japan travel sellers proclaimed the training a success, Hawaii’s largest international market still saw a 0.5 percent drop in arrivals, which came in at 1.5 million for all of 2014. The decrease contributed to a 2.9 percent drop in Japanese visitor spending, which fell to $2.4 billion.

"We know that we’ve got to go to the guns. There’s a sense of urgency," Takahata said.

This year, the HTA kept the Japan arrivals goal flat at 1.57 million and dropped its spending goal by 0.5 percent to $2.5 billion. However, if targets are achieved, they will bring a 3.8 percent arrivals gain and a 4.1 percent spending rise over 2014 actuals. Uchiyama said HTA is working to increase demand through festivals and events and by partnering with the airlines to reduce mileage requirements to buy tickets through loyalty programs.