Two weeks ago, three key executives from the newly hired public relations firm, Lou Hammond & Associates, including CEO Lou Hammond, spent several days in Natchez. They were “wowed” by not only the beauty of our city and the many people of the community that they met while here, but also by the richness of the public relations opportunities they can communicate worldwide. With the firm’s singular vision of quality—in setting, staff, service and spirit, this mission of LH&A parallels that of the CVB and Tricentennial teams.

The Natchez Convention and Promotion Commission entered into a contract with LH&A with the singular goal to promote Natchez utilizing the designated $2 room tax, which specifically funds marketing and public relations initiatives. The value the firm brings to Natchez is the ability to leverage the awareness and appeal of Natchez by having an international pulse on the topics that are trending on a daily basis and having the immediate ability to “match” a Natchez product/service/person/place to that trend and make a small investment produce a substantial return.

For example, immediately upon consummation of the agreement between the firm and the CVB, the efforts of LH&A were able to promote Natchez as one of “The Top 30 Best Small Cities in America” via Conde Nast Traveler. This digital campaign which featured Historic Monmouth Inn on the home page was additionally “picked up” by The Huffington Post and has reached 33,647,468 unique visitors and generated a publicity value of $28,000 to date.

This is just one example of the power of strategically positioned public relations. The media awareness provided Natchez is huge compared to the investment, and that is why we hired a firm of the caliber of Lou Hammond & Associates.

While the Tricentennial year will benefit from the relationship between Natchez and LH&A, the job at hand is to utilize our 300th birthday as a “calling card” to ultimately maximize the awareness of the great variety of appealing benefits Natchez provides long term and make Natchez the destination of choice for visitors and even new residents.

The tax dollars utilized to hire Lou Hammond & Associates are generated by visitors who stay in our hotels, inns, and bed and breakfast properties. The $2 per room night tax only grows as our overall occupancy rate increases. But, these visitors also eat, shop, buy gas, take a variety of tours—among many other things—which ultimately drives a great portion of our economy. Simply, as the largest single area employer, the Tourism/Hospitality industry is an economic driver which secures our position as a Tourism town. We are investing $8,000 per month with LH&A to work with us to

maximize the great potential we have as a leading tourism destination in the nation. Again, a $28,000 media impact off of just one strategic execution provides the anticipated results from a firm with the reputation of LH&A.

The firm spent four days in Natchez visiting hotels, restaurants, historical sites and entertainment venues as part of the first-step in creating a strategic action plan. To this end, they are excited to work on leveraging partnerships the CVB has been diligently developing with various Tourism partners, to include the Bed & Breakfast Association, Natchez Pilgrimage Tours, Miss-Lou Tours among many others. Additionally, their recommendations for enhancing existing and future services and sites are forthcoming, and will be available to the public.

From there, Natchez public and private stakeholders will be tasked with putting on the best Natchez face so that the marketing firm can showcase Natchez internationally and domestically

 

Kevin Kirby is the director of the Natchez Convention and Visitors Bureau.