[01/08/01] As the Vicksburg Convention Center wrapped up one of its most tumultuous years, the city announced plans to choose this week between two companies vying to run the facility.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen has been debating privatization proposals for the convention center for months, and North Ward Alderman Gertrude Young said members were ready to select one of the two companies at Wednesday’s board meeting.

Two companies, SMG Corp. and Compass Facility Management, have been wooing the city, and officials have studied each suitor in detail, including visits to convention centers in Memphis and Davenport, Iowa.

“We considered the marketing ability of each company, their projections for the future and how available they were going to be to us,” Young said. “We want to get a company in here as soon as possible.”

After naming one of the two companies, the city will continue to negotiate with that company until it reaches a suitable contract, she said. The initial contract will be for one year, with a 45-day out if either side feels the deal isn’t working out.

The last year has been anything but smooth sailing for the 3-year-old, $12 million convention center.

Patricia Cato, the center’s second director, resigned in May after leaving a $230,000 marketing budget sitting idle for more than a year and watching revenues decline from the first year of the center to the second.

After Cato left, Operations Manager Norman Ford stepped up to the plate and immediately began developing a regional marketing plan.

The facility’s first brochure followed quickly, along with direct mail, magazine ads in trade publications for meeting planners and a television commercial.

The plan, Ford said, is to move past the wedding receptions, class reunions and local business meetings that have been the center’s mainstay for the past few years, and book more large events for out-of-town groups, like last year’s motorcycle convention and statewide teacher’s conference.

“Next year, we’re going to concentrate more on conventions and bringing out-of-town people into town to augment the tourism base,” Ford said. “That’s what’s going to get us off the public dole, so to speak.”

The convention center is supported by a 2 percent tourism tax paid by patrons at local hotels, restaurants and bars. But in the last fiscal year, the city also had to pay $337,000 from the general fund to cover the center’s expenses.

In last calendar year, attendance at convention center events rose slightly, from 29,014 in 1999 to 32,585, and total revenue rose from $684,200 to $685,470.

Final revenues for 2000 will be about $25,000 higher, Ford said, because tourism taxes for December haven’t been received yet.

“Given the fact that our marketing was virtually nonexistent, the fact that we increased at all was good,” he said.

But the major improvements will come once the new marketing strategy, directed toward meeting planners across the South, starts having an impact, Ford said. An increase in out-of-town visitors will increase convention center revenues and boost business for local hotels, shops and restaurants, which will in turn boost tourism tax revenues that fund the center, he said.

“Norman has done a great job marketing, and I think he has taken us to a whole new level,” Young said. “With the expertise of a management company, I think we can go to still another level.”

Local attorney Bobby Bailess, who heads the facility’s advisory board, echoed Young’s optimism.

“I think this convention center is headed in a positive direction, and has been for several months,” Bailess said. “But the real gravy to me will be to get these folks who aren’t from here to use the facility and spend several nights here.”