Tourism officials in Natchez, Miss., are preparing to launch a new visitors Web site later this month, local media reports. The Web site, which will feature an area dedicated solely to meetings and conventions, will cost a projected $15,000 to $17,000, according to the Natchez Convention and Visitors Bureau, which says it has cut the project budget by some $20,000 from $37,000 in the interest of conserving resources.
"What we've done is we've been able to come under [the original budget] by researching and making sure we weren't doing a lot of crossover stuff and really trying to economize, but still have a wonderful site," Tourism Director Connie Taunton told local paper
The Natchez Democrat last month. "We just didn’t' want to really jump out there and overspend."
The new Web site—scheduled to launch in mid- to late December at
www.visitnatchez.org—is a departure for the Natchez CVB, as it is being developed and managed by the bureau independently of Natchez-based MissLou Internet, which operates its current Web site.
The new site will not have advertising—the current version does—and will feature tabs targeted at leisure travelers, travel agents, wedding planners, film producers, media professionals and meeting planners, who will be able to use the site to research local meeting amenities, access floor plans for Natchez-based meeting venues and take a virtual tour of the Natchez Convention Center.
The new VisitNatchez.org will be funded in part by a new $2 hotel tax; the uncertainty of first-year income from the tax is one reason that the CVB decided to cut its Web site budget.
"Right now we're having to be very careful in where we spend those dollars," Taunton said.