Natchitoches Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (NACVB) Director Arlene Gould shared data regarding social media mentions and news reports concerning Natchitoches from news to tourism, food and Northwestern. She provided the Tourist Office Commission with some of the top media outlets reporting on Natchitoches and the potential reach each article has at its meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 17. This information is gathered by Meltwater.

Meltwater believes that business strategy will be increasingly shaped by insights from the growing world of online data that lies outside of internal reporting systems.

Some examples include:
Tour Magazine: “Mispronounced Cities” (14 million)
San Francisco Gate: “$3M Riverfront Project” (8 million)
San Francisco Gate: “NSU Folk Fest” (8 million)

Total, the potential reach for 2016 was over 650 million. This helps the NACVB stay on top of real-time editorial, blog, and social media conversations about Natchitoches. It can then extract the insights necessary to understand and drive brand perception for the city and parish.

In other business, the NACVB finished the year with $363,406 in hotel/motel tax collections. This is 7.8 percent down from the previous year, or $30,976 from the 2015 calendar year, which collected $394,383. Gould says the collections were affected by the economy, oil and gas and 2016 being an election year.

The Commission also amended the budget for the NACVB’s income to be at $355,000, coming in at 2 percent over budget, or $8,406. Total income was $501,979 and the total expenses were $435,754 for a net income of $66,292. Taking into account the $50,000 bond debt service, the final net income is $16,292.