NATCHEZ — With the City of Natchez’s management agreement for the convention center set to expire in April, tourism officials are attempting to educate themselves on the inner workings of the center’s operations.

Representatives from the Natchez Convention Center appeared before the Natchez Convention Promotion Commission last week at the request of the commission to detail information about the center.

The city’s five-year contract with New Orleans Hotel Consultants expires at the end of April. The commission aims to review the contract and operations ahead of then and explore how to move forward.

Convention Center Director Walter Tipton and New Orleans Hotel Consultants President Warren Reuther gave the commission a presentation on the center, which opened in 2002, and the center’s hotel, the Natchez Grand Hotel, which Reuther owns.

The city pays New Orleans Hotel Consultants $240,000 annually, or $20,000 per month, to manage the center.

Reuther and Tipton gave an overview of how the center came to be built, the role of the Grand as the center’s hotel, payroll structure of the center and stressed that the management agreement was created in the spirit of a public-private partnership modeled after other centers.

Reuther noted his role in getting the $2 “heads on beds” tax passed, which resulted in the city having money to market the city to tourists, and said Natchez has the potential to capitalize on the tourism market like New Orleans. Reuther is a longtime tourism developer in New Orleans and has invited the commission as well as the Natchez Board of Aldermen to visit New Orleans to see his operations.

Tipton noted the steady increase in tourism’s economic impact on the city and the increase in hotel rooms, amid a declining population in Natchez.

The commission did not get much clarification on questions sent to ahead of the meeting regarding specific aspects of the center’s operations, including hotel bookings for conventions not at the Grand and specific accounting of the operating budget of the center.

“We don’t have accounting systems that address the way you’re asking the questions,” Tipton said.

Reuther said, if the city wanted to pay for a more sophisticated accounting system and a staff member to manage it, the center would be open to such a change.

In terms of bookings at hotels outside the Grand, Tipton said the center does not always handle lodging, as some meeting planners directly book hotels, and said it would be difficult for the center to give a completely accurate picture of the center’s impact on other hotels.

CPC Chair Lance Harris asked Reuther and Tipton to revisit the commission’s requests for more information and attend another meeting.

Harris thanked Reuther and Tipton for attending the meeting and sharing information.

“(This) will go a long way (in) helping us understand the inner workings and operations and management of the convention center,” Harris said.

Tipton and Reuther agreed that the meeting was likely the first of several conversations between the CPC and the convention center to fully review operations.