NATCHEZ — Natchez tourism leaders often like to talk about getting heads on beds, but recent changes in the hotel market means the city will have fewer beds for heads in what is hoped to be one of the city’s biggest tourism years ever.

“The Eola Hotel and the Isle of Capri hotel are out of the market, and we are about to embark on the biggest tourism season we have ever had,” Natchez Mayor Butch Brown said. “We are going to have to work to find solutions to that.”

The historic Natchez Eola Hotel closed its doors in December, its new owners promising it will eventually re-open after renovations with some hotel rooms but also partially converted into apartments.

The Isle of Capri Casino recently announced its plans to close the casino and sell its hotel to the parent company of Magnolia Bluffs Casino. The Isle hotel will be closed sometime in the fall, and will re-open as the Magnolia Bluffs hotel after renovation.

But tentative plans released by Magnolia Bluffs say only some floors of guest rooms will be open during the first quarter of 2016 when the city officially opens its tricentennial celebration.

Losing a downtown hotel in a year when the city has made an effort to book conventions has certainly been a wrinkle in planning, tricentennial director Jennifer Ogden Combs said.

“We have got a ton of conventions — and major conventions — that are coming in through the fall of this year to build into the tricentennial,” she said. “The Eola closing is definitely a blow, and not just because it was a downtown hotel but historic hotel. It was walkable to the convention center but also to the entire downtown area.”

With the Isle of Capri Hotel, Combs said she feels “a little more optimistic” because its owners have plans to re-open it to some business in early 2016.

“I’ve been told that the (Great Mississippi River Balloon Race) is safe, that they will still be open for that, and that is huge, a big factor for planning,” she said.

A lot of the planning falls to the Natchez Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Combs said, because it is more often than not the place where visitors go to request information about where to stay.

Some relief for the hotel room dilemma might come from the bed-and-breakfast sector.

“My experience with conventions and meetings is they want — and everybody who goes to them wants — everybody to be all together in a convenient, single hotel where you can work and network together,” Combs said.

“Those who are just coming to the area as visitors, though, they like having that authentic experience. A lot of the bed-and-breakfasts, they have their own story — the story of their homes — and they are not just sharing delicious food and unique accommodations, but the story of their homes as well.”

Christine Tims, the owner of Bisland House and head of the Natchez Bed-and-Breakfast Association, said the association has representation at all tourism council meetings and stays in contact with the CVB and tricentenial commission.

“All of us are proactive in trying to get as many heads on beds as we can,” Tims said.

“We do appreciate any overflow that we get, and we do have some connections with the visitor’s center and other hotels that know to suggest bed-and-breakfasts when they are full.

“We are all about working with the city and the hotels, and we are glad to have the overlow — our slogan is, “‘Our doors are always open.’”

Combs said the hotel effort includes talking to regional partners as well, and a solution the commission and other organizers have found is to strengthen the Natchez Transit System and have the Natchez trolleys running more frequently to transport people who aren’t staying downtown to the downtown locations of their conventions, Combs said.

“By strengthening and working out ways to work together with Natchez Transit to get people transported from somewhere like The Vue, the Holiday Inn Express, the Hampton Inn, it may not be directly walkable but it is a quick ride,” she said.

“Even if we can’t have as many people staying in that area, we can get them there.”