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Denpasar, Bali. The operators of the Borobudur and Prambanan temples in Central Java are seeking to tap Bali’s lucrative tourist flow by opening a representative office on the resort island.

Borobudur, a Buddhist monument in Magelang, and Prambanan, a Hindu temple complex outside Yogyakarta, both date from the ninth century and are currently managed by Taman Wisata Candi.

TWC officially opened its Bali office on Thursday on Jalan Sunset in Kuta.

“We hope the office serves as a bridge to provide information to tourists in Bali who wish to visit Borobudur and Prambanan,” Purnomo Siswo Prasetyo, president director of TWC, said on Thursday.

He added that many foreign tourists who visited Bali were already likely to visit the Central Java monuments, but TWC was looking for higher numbers.

Of the approximately 400,000 foreign tourists who visit Borobudur and Prambanan each year, Purnomo said, 80 percent had just come from Bali.

“That figure is still far less than the three million domestic tourists who visit the monuments each year,” he said. “That’s why we want to raise the profile of Borobudur and Prambanan among visitors to Bali.”

Purnomo said the new office in Kuta would work closely with tour operators to inform tourists there about the historic Central Java monuments, both of which have been named World Heritage sites by Unesco.

“We expect that by having this representative office, we’ll be able to boost foreign tourist numbers to Borobudur and Prambanan to one million in 2011,” he said.

He added that 4.7 million domestic tourists were expected to visit the monuments next year.

Yuli Setiono, the managing director of Java Promo, a tourism board set up by 15 districts and towns in Yogyakarta and Central Java, said the TWC’s representative office was also expected to help lift visitor numbers to these areas.

He said tourist numbers there had fallen drastically since the May 2006 earthquake that devastated Yogyakarta.

“Right after the quake we had a drop of five million visitors from the previous year’s figure of 14 million visitors,” he said.

Since 2007, he said, the numbers had recovered slowly, but with greater promotion were expected to reach pre-quake levels by 2013.

Yuli added Java Promo had organized several campaigns to boost tourist numbers, and would promote them at the 10th annual Nusa Dua Fiesta, which runs from through Tuesday in the upscale Bali resort of Nusa Dua.

Meanwhile, Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, chairman of the Bali Tourism Board, lauded TWC’s move to piggy-back on the island’s international exposure by setting up a representative office.

“To really promote your region, you have to go to where the tourists are,” he said.