NATCHEZ — For Karla Brown, the Natchez Tricentennial isn’t just another opportunity to showcase the city she’s been promoting with her tour business. It’s a chance to expand.

The owner of Downtown Karla Brown tours and airport shuttle, Brown said the 300th anniversary of the city’s founding — which is being heavily promoted by the Natchez Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the Tricentennial commission — seems like a logical time to add two or three vehicles and drivers to her fleet.

“I am hoping we are going to be very busy here, and there are going to be a lot of people in town, which means adding tours,” Brown said. “I think more people means more tours means more vehicles.”

And that’s one of the goals of the Tricentennial  effort, to not only celebrate the city’s history but to serve as an economic driver for local businesses, Tricentennial Commission Director Jennifer Ogden Combs said.

“Because tourism is our No.  1 industry and the economic driver at this point, more tourists and more visitors mean more heads on beds, more restaurants, more shopping, more goods and services, more money being spent in gas stations,” she said.

“But I want this to have long-term impact on us growing and evolving. It is not just about having a birthday party or an event or a whole bunch of events, it is about how does that create something going forward?”

In the case of Rick Todd, 2016 looks like the perfect time to launch what he says will be an annual two-day event, the River City Music Festival.

“We want it to be like the Essence Festival, where it is an annual thing every year,” Todd said. “We want to provide some entertainment opportunities and do some economic development for the city, and the Tricentennial is a celebration that is only going to happen once, so why not shoot for this time?”

“The nostalgia will be pretty high, people will be pretty big on celebrating about Natchez, so we wanted to bring something that will tie in with it and be good for our area.”

Like Brown, the Tricentennial offers Adam Elliott of Quapaw Canoe Company the opportunity to grow to his company, in this case additional boats and crew members.

“Since I am a part of the river, I want to expand my capacity for the next year and hopefully accommodate what will be more traffic that wants to accommodate our town because of its 300th,” Elliott said. “I want to be able to get more people out at one time and possibly have someone trained up to be an assistant guide and help educate and introduce people to what made Natchez what it is.”

During the Tricentennial, the month of September will be a celebration of the river, and Elliott said in addition to taking on more business the celebration is also a chance for him to organize what will be a river-based event, either a race or a flotilla.

Combs said the Tricentennial commission hopes many other businesses see the celebration as an opportunity and take advantage of the momentum associated with it.

“The opportunity in 2016 is about the community taking ownership of where we are going in the future, be it a small business expanding or if they have an event,” Combs said. “It creates more of a sense of ownership and pride in what we are offering, and I think that is a potential catalyst for positive growth.”

As for Brown, she’s already incorporating the idea of the Tricentennial into her tours now.

“(The Tricentennial) fits right in with what I am already doing on my tours — I talk about the French, King Cotton, the buildings, and right now when I am giving tours, it’s fun to point out the things they are doing in preparation, to tell them it is all in preparation for our big celebration,” she said.