For the first three quarters of the year, visitors from developing international visitor markets to Hawaii dropped 1.1 percent from last year, according to data released yesterday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

The drop was in contrast to the 19.3 percent decline in total air visitors to Hawaii for the first nine months of 2008.

A combined total of 305,922 visitors - or 5.9 percent of the total visitor count - came to Hawaii by air from the developing international markets of Oceania, Europe, Other Asia and Latin America until September.

Visitors from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland were up 7.6 percent to 87,734, while all other markets were down.

Visitors from Oceania (Australia, New Zealand) dropped the most, and were down 5.5 percent to 117,211 visitors compared to last year.

Arrivals from other Asia (China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) were down 2.8 percent to 86,860 compared to last year.

Though promising in the first quarter, with an 11.1 percent increase, the arrivals from other Asian countries were offset by a 1.4 percent decline in the second quarter and 15 percent decline in the third quarter.

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said the third-quarter decline may have been due to the devastating earthquake in China as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Visitors from Latin America declined 2.4 percent from the same period last year to 14,117.