NATCHEZ — This year’s Spring Pilgrimage was the second best season Natchez has seen in the last 10 years, Natchez Pilgrimage Tours Director Marsha Colson said.

Colson said tour sales were up over last year, and group tours did especially well this year.

This year’s numbers are close to those in 2011, which was the Pilgrimage’s best year since 2004.

“One of the most exciting things to me is that we were only a little behind 2011,” Colson said.

Some tour houses had record numbers over those in recent years, Colson said, including Shields Town House and Linden.

Linden owner Jeanette Feltus said this year has been one of the best for her in several years.

Feltus said she cannot quite put her finger on the reason more tourists are in town, but she said a lot of Linden’s guests were from surrounding states.

“I think people are doing things closer to home,” she said. “And the weather was somewhat better this year, too.

“Whatever it was, I’m glad we had it.”

Natchez Little Theatre Executive Director Layne Taylor said the theater had its best season for “Southern Exposure” since he took over direction of theater in 2002.

“We were way up,” Taylor said. “We played to several sold-out audiences. In fact, our final Sunday (show) was standing-room only.”

Taylor said this year’s show had a new energy to it.

“We noticed that a lot of tourists came from word-of-mouth; they had heard the show was hysterical, and the locals came because it was under new direction and had a new cast,” he said. “Mainly it was the increase in tourists.”

The theater’s patrons included tourists from Germany, Switzerland, Texas, Boston, Kentucky, Minnesota, Colorado and other places, Taylor said.

Holy Family Choir President said ticket sales for “Southern Road to Freedom” doubled over last year.

“It was much, much better than last year,” she said. “Attendance was up the first night all the way through to the end.”

Pilgrimage Garden Club Tableaux Chairwoman Martha Salters said she does not have final numbers for Historic Natchez Tableaux, but she believes bigger crowds turned out this year for the show.

“I’m very anxious to see the numbers,” she said. “It went really well. I was very pleased.”

Overall, Colson said she thinks there were more tourists in town. She said the return of riverboats to Natchez also helped Pilgrimage sales, as well as individual promotion from Old South Trading Post owner Jonathan Wood and other business owners.

“The boats are back, and that helped, and our staff worked really hard and did a really great job,” Colson said.