For the month of May, Hawaii broke all previous records for visitor arrivals and spending.

A total of 633,899 visitors arrived in the islands last month, an increase of 12.5 percent from May 2011. Visitor spending, meanwhile, reached $1.1 billion in May, up 17.5 percent from the same month last year.

However, Uchiyama said there is still plenty of room to grow. Statewide hotel occupancy in Hawaii stands at 72 percent, and some neighbor islands are filling only 60 percent of available rooms.