But the visitor tally for all of 1996 was up 3.6 percent from 1995 thanks to a strong performance earlier in the year and a surge in Japanese travel. The HVCB's report yesterday for 1996's visitor count was in line with its preliminary estimate released three weeks ago.

For last month, the HVCB said eastbound travelers including the Japanese, the biggest foreign segment of Hawaii's tourist trade, declined by 0.1 percent, compared with December 1995. The failure of the Japanese market to produce the increases that the industry has been relying on came on top of a 5.2 percent drop in December westbound travel.

The combination made December the second month in a row in which tourist arrivals failed to match the year-earlier level, the HVCB said.

Overall, Hawaii had 564,300 tourist arrivals in last month, compared with 581,510 in December 1995. Westbound arrivals totaled 308,730, down from 325,700 a year earlier. Eastbound arrivals totaled 255,570, compared with 255,810 in the year-earlier month.

For the full year, Hawaii had 6.82 million tourists, compared with 6.59 million in 1995.

"We made some progress in 1996, attracting more visitors from Japan than ever before and more from Canada than we've had in 10 years," said Paul Casey, HVCB president. One reason was added airline service, he said.

"Unfortunately the eastbound surge lost strength toward the end of the year and we've had to revise our 1997 outlook to no growth because of economic uncertainty in Japan and the weaker yen," Casey said. "On top of that, the westbound market has been declining for three months and many of the visitors who came to Hawaii didn't stay as long."

The tourist industry rates length of stay as an important statistic because the longer people stay, the more they spend.

Eastbound tourists cut their length of stay to an average of 5.9 days last month, from 6.3 days in December 1995. Westbound visitors stayed 12.3 days in December on average, compared with 11.8 days a year earlier.