U.S. and Japanese visitors were slightly less satisfied with their overall experiences in Hawai'i in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to a state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism report released yesterday.

The 2006 Visitor Satisfaction 1st Half-Year Monitoring Report said 63.6 percent of U.S. visitors rated their most recent Hawai'i trip as "excellent," down from 66.8 percent in the first half of 2005.

Only 50.8 percent of Japanese travelers — who are typically less inclined to give top ratings — said their most recent trip was excellent. That compares with 52.4 percent in the first half of last year.

Meanwhile, more U.S. visitors — 65.2 percent compared with 63.1 percent last year — said they would "very likely" visit Hawai'i within the next five years.

The number of Japanese visitors who said they would very likely return in the next five years fell 1 percentage point to 48.6 percent.

A total of 1,432 U.S. visitors and 1,511 Japanese visitors responded to the mailed surveys. The margin of error in the polls of U.S. and Japanese visitors was 2.59 percentage points and 2.52 percentage points, respectively.

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2006 Visitor Satisfaction 1st Half-Year Monitoring Report, www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/visitor-stats/vsat