Hawaii’s tourism industry started 2019 with its deepest monthly drop in visitor spending in more than three years.

Arrivals rose 3 percent to 820,621 visitors in January, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority at the start of the organization’s monthly board meeting. However, HTA reported that monthly spending fell nearly 4 percent to $1.62 billion.

It was the second month of visitor spending declines but the largest drop since October 2015, when spending fell nearly 6 percent.

Chris Tatum, HTA president and CEO, said two months doesn’t constitute a trend, so it’s still too early to become overly concerned about softening. Also, the beginning half of 2018 was so robust that the current dip is magnified in comparison, Tatum said.

“January was impacted a lot by the fourth quarter, where we had labor disruptions, storms and a lot of other things to be concerned about,” he said.

While January arrivals were up, Tatum said, statewide occupancy declined at Hawaii hotels. Since hotels tend to attract higher-spending guests, the decrease might have affected spending, he said.

Statewide occupancy dropped 2.8 percentage points to 79.5 percent, according to a hotel report from STR, a data and analytics specialist. It was the lowest January occupancy since January 2015, when Hawaii hotels were 77.5 percent full.

Jennifer Chun, HTA director of tourism research, said hotel use was down only 0.8 percent in January but that hotels are such a large part of Hawaii’s lodging inventory that the percentage of people was still “significant.” Visitors who planned to stay in a hotel in January fell by 3,718 to 467,146.

Duke Ah Moo, Hilton’s vice president and commercial director for Hawaii, said January occupancy at Hawaii’s hotels may have been negatively affected by the partial government shutdown, winter storms and continuation of the U.S.-Chinese trade war.

Tatum said growth in illegal vacation rentals also could have played a role in the hotel occupancy drop. While hotel use was down in January, there was growth in the number of visitors who planned to stay at vacation rentals, timeshares, rental houses and private and shared rooms.

Overall, January results were a mixed bag. Arrivals by air dropped from Canada but rose in all other major source markets: the U.S. West, the U.S. East, Japan and the category called “all other international markets.” Still, average daily spending fell more than 5 percent to $199 due to drops from every one of these major visitor source markets except for the U.S. East.

Only Oahu realized increases in both arrivals and spending. Maui achieved arrivals growth but saw visitor spending decline. Hawaii island and Kauai both experienced dips in spending and arrivals.

”Although occupancy declined year over year on each island in the STR data, average daily rates remained strong. Oahu experienced positive (revenue per available room) growth due to the diverse mix of business at the island’s hotels. The island of Hawaii continues to be down in occupancy for the last nine months, since the beginning of Kilauea’s eruption last year,” Ah Moo said.

Jack Richards, Pleasant Holidays president and CEO, said HTA and STR reports align with his company’s January results.

“We’ve noticed a 3 percent decline in our total average transaction price to Hawaii this year for January and February,” Richards said. “It’s still unclear if that’s because the airfares and hotels are slightly down in price or because visitors are purchasing hotels of lower quality.”

But Richards said he expects improvements deeper into the year.

“The consumer confidence index increased in February after declining for three consecutive months,” he said. “That bodes well for Hawaii tourism.”

Tatum said the second- quarter pace seems “a little more positive.”

KC Connors, a Koolauloa community activist, isn’t sure that’s good news, especially since Hawaii’s visitor industry still hasn’t been able to meet its goal of growing tourism through spending rather than arrivals.

She’s not enthusiastic about economy-class carrier Southwest Airlines getting the all-clear to begin Hawaii service or All Nippon Airways’ announcement that it would begin flying its Airbus A380 superjumbo, 520-seat aircraft here May 24.

“There has to be more balance. Tourism is exploiting our land and beauty without providing enough benefits,” Connors said.