Hawaii’s tourism industry achieved its fourth consecutive year of records for visitor arrivals and visitor expenditures in 2015, with strong momentum expected to continue into 2016.

A record 8,649,357 visitors were welcomed to Hawaii in 2015, a 4.1 percent increase over 2014, producing a record $15.2 billion in visitor spending, an increase of 2.3 percent year-over-year, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. On any given day there were 214,469 visitors in Hawaii, a 3.5 percent increase over 2014’s average daily census. Tourists pumped $1.6 billion of tax revenue into state coffers.

The visitor industry had a strong finish to 2015. For December, Hawaii welcomed 794,246 visitors, an increase of 3.7 percent. These visitors spent $1.5 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent, or $37 million more than December 2014.

“Congratulations to everyone in our tourism industry for contributing to Hawaii’s record-setting year,” said George D. Szigeti, HTA president and CEO. “Everyone shares in the accomplishments of tourism, and all of our communities benefit from its success.”

Daniel Nahoopii, HTA director of tourism research, said 2015 finished slightly ahead of its targets for arrivals and airline seats. The industry fell just short of its targets for visitor spending, visitor days and daily spending.

Szigeti said tourism is off to a strong start in 2016 and that the outlook for the year is bright and optimistic.

“The public can be assured, however, that HTA is not resting on the laurels of tourism’s past success,” he said. “Tourism is incredibly competitive. We are utilizing HTA’s state funding wisely, efficiently, responsibly and aggressively to compete for the attention of global travelers against destinations worldwide.”

Jerry Gibson, area vice president for Hilton Hawaii, said 2015 was an excellent year.

“What really helped business this year was the American traveler traveling and coming to Hawaii,” Gibson said. “The record-setting pace from the U.S. mainland East and West, and in conjunction with the growth we were getting from Asia outside of Japan, really helped.”

Gibson said he expects much of the momentum of 2015 to carry into 2016, which he expects will prove to be a strong year — just not as good as 2015 was.

“I believe with economics as they are and European travel slowing down and Asia a bit off, I think we’ll be doing well if we hit last year’s capacity. I don’t see 2016 as a record-setting year. But I’m not unhappy. It’s still going to be a very good year,” Gibson said.

Barry Wallace, executive vice president of Hospitality Services for Outrigger Enterprises, said the first-quarter booking pace is off to a good start.

“If it continues, we could reach last year’s occupancy level and maybe even do a little better,” Wallace said. “That means that on Oahu we’ll stay virtually where we are because, practically speaking, we are already at capacity.”

Wallace said there’s room for growth on the neighbor islands, but he expects the Big Island will stay a little flat until the dengue fever crisis blows over.

“If you look at the Big Island’s arrivals growth last year, it was at 3.8 percent year-to-date, but it was only 0.8 percent in December,” Wallace said. “I think the numbers reflect that as the year went on and dengue cases grew, some people stayed away. I would attribute it to that because all the other islands grew a little more steadily.”

Gibson said Hilton didn’t see much dengue fever dampening on Hawaii island, where pockets of inventory were sold out in December.

“It’s always in the back of our minds, but traffic has been pretty robust,” he said. “In fact, we’ve got some medical groups coming to the Big Island during the first quarter. I think the metrics for the Big Island actually look pretty good.”

Szigeti said airline access was robust in 2015 and that his team at HTA is continuing to work to recruit new carriers and to get current ones to add more seats and routes. He said Jin Air and Virgin America have helped since entering the Hawaii market at the end of 2015.

“They’ve been very positive developments,” Szigeti said. “Jin Air has five flights a week from Korea. They’ve got room for 393 passengers per flight, and they’ve been booked. Virgin Air has been very popular. We are hoping to see them open up more flights soon. The start of AirAsia X next quarter from Malaysia also will open up the Southeast Asia market for us.”