While the number of Australian visitors to the Islands has fluctuated widely in recent decades, they still make up the fourth-largest international market for Hawai'i and remain an important source of tourist dollars, participants at an industry conference said yesterday.

The peak in Australian arrivals occurred in the early 1990s when well over 200,000 visitors from Down Under traveled to Hawai'i each year. By 2001 arrivals ebbed to just over 66,000. The number of visitors climbed back to 122,840 in 2005 before slipping slightly last year to 116,000, according to data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.

Australians stay longer and spend more than the average tourist. Their average length of stay is more than eight days and expenditures of $184 a day and add up to an estimated $210 million annually, said Chuck Gee, the dean emeritus from the University of Hawai'i's School of Travel Industry Management.

Gee noted that the links between Australia and Hawai'i go back long before statehood. He was among those speaking at the Hawai'i Convention Center yesterday at the "Australia-Hawai'i Pacific Pathways History Conference."

"Culture and tourism are natural partners," Gee said. One of the early links can be found in 1911 when 'ukulele master Ernest Kaai toured with his Hawaiian troupe in Australia, sparking an early interest in Hawaiian music, he said.

The conference is sponsored by the Australian Consulate General in Honolulu, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority, Outrigger Enterprises Group and the Australian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Frank Haas, now at UH, and former marketing director to the Hawai'i Tourism Authority, painted some more details into the Australian visitor picture.

"They stay longer, they spend more, they spend differently," Haas said. "They also tend to stay on O'ahu."

The National Park Service's Daniel Martinez, historian from the Arizona Memorial, said tourists — including a number of veterans — from Australia make up an important part of their annual visitors.

Martinez said the government tallies show at least 12,000 Australian visitors at the memorial each year, but he said he believes that number is closer to double.

The consistent number of visiting Australians is welcome because it comes at a time when visitor arrivals from Japan have been dropping. Although the number of Australian tourists is still relatively low compared with arrivals from other countries, their spending is rising at a faster rate.

Total expenditures from U.S. West Coast visitors increased by 22.2 percent from 2001 to 2004, according to DBEDT, while those from Japanese visitors increased by 3.51 percent. Comparatively, the combined expenditures of visitors from Australia and New Zealand shot up 112.3 percent to $191.7 million during the same period. (DBEDT doesn't separate spending figures for Australia and New Zealand).

In 2004, visitors from Australia and New Zealand spent an average of $1,450 per trip, compared with tourists from Japan ($1,459), the U.S. West ($1,408) and U.S. East ($1,770). Japanese visitors in 2004 still outspent all groups by averaging $251.50 per day.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.