About 150 tourism officials from 17 Mississippi counties and 16 Louisiana parishes will be in Vicksburg for three days beginning Tuesday to tour regional attractions and trade ideas on how to cross-promote rural tourism along the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast.

Along with visiting attractions and touring historical sites in Vicksburg, participants of the Miss-Lou Tourism Summit will take day trips to the Louisiana Delta, Rolling Fork and the Delta National Forest.

“We’re going to showcase all there is to do and see in and around Vicksburg, so as our regional partners are asked about our region they will have firsthand knowledge of the Vicksburg product,” said Bill Seratt, Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director. “As we try to cross-sell our communities, it is very important we have a firsthand knowledge of what we’re selling.”

This year marks the Miss-Lou Rural Tourism Association’s third annual summit, with the previous two events being held in Natchez and Vidalia. Seratt said Vicksburg is fortunate to be hosting this year’s summit, as the city is geographically and strategically poised to benefit from tourism across the entire area known as the Miss-Lou region.

“We want to position ourselves as the hub of the region – the center point from which people can tour the areas around Vicksburg in Missisissippi and Louisiana,” he said. “We are perfectly situated in the region, and we have the lodging and attractions to be the place people base their vacations from.”

Counties and parishes defined as the Miss-Lou region and represented at the tourism summit are Adams, Amite, Claiborne, Copiah, Franklin, Hancock, Issaquena, Jefferson, Lamar, Lincoln, Marion, Pearl River, Pike, Sharkey, Walthall, Warren and Wilkinson counties, and Avoyelles, Catahoula, Concordia, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Franklin, Madison, Point Coupee, Richland, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Tensas, Washington, West Carroll and West Feliciana parishes.

Aside from touring local and regional attractions, summit participants will also attend seminars by tourism and agriculture professionals on how to promote rural tourism. Seminars will be at the Southern Cultural Heritage Center, with titles ranging from Developing a corn maze and Making teachers love your farm to Promoting regional nature tourism and Civil War history.

The seminars are open to the public, and registration will be available at the SCHC beginning Tuesday at 1 p.m. One-day registration is $35, and for all three days, the cost is $100. A full schedule of seminars and a registration form is also available at http://srdc.msstate.edu/misslou/index.html.