Bali continues to experience a sharp increase in terms of international visitor arrivals, driven by rising number of Chinese tourists.

According to the latest official data, reported by BaliDiscovery.com, the Indonesian island welcomed a total of 1.33 million overseas visitors in the first quarter of 2017, 22% more than in the same period last year.

And mainland China has surged into the top of the rankings, in terms of source markets, sending 394,360 visitors to Bali in Q1 2017. This represents a 58.6% year-on-year increase and means that China now accounts for almost 30% of all international visitors to the “Island of the Gods”.

Australia, for so long Bali’s largest source market, has now been pushed into second place, despite a strong 7.2% year-on-year increase to 260,503 visitors in the three-month period. This gives Australia a 19.5% market share, and combined with China, these two important source markets contribute almost half of all international visitors to Bali.

Japan, once an extremely important source market for Bali, is now a distant third with just 57,725 visitors in Q1 2017, 5.2% fewer than the same period in 2016. And with India, Bali’s fourth largest source market, seeing strong double-digit growth (29.9% to 52,225) in Q1 2017, Japan is expected to fall further down the rankings in the near future. The commencement of Indonesia AirAsia X’s new daily flights between Bali and Mumbai is likely to accelerate this process.

The UK (-1.4% to 45,565), USA (+17.0% to 45,458), South Korea (+10.2% to 39,467), Malaysia (-2.9% to 39,335) and Taiwan (+15.2% to 34,845) completed the top 10, while Russia was Bali’s fastest-growing major source market, with arrivals surging 87% to 32,852 in Q1.

If Bali maintains the current rate of growth for the remainder of 2017, the island will end the year with almost six million international visitor arrivals.