NATCHEZ — Mayor Butch Brown is traveling to St. Louis this week in attempt to recruit conferences to Natchez for 2016.

Brown left Tuesday for the annual meeting of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission, of which Brown is a member.

“I’ll be finalizing that group’s participating in the 2016 celebration,” he said. “I’ll also be reaching out to other groups. There are about 100 nonprofits associated in some way with the Mississippi River, its ecology, transportation, water resources, recreation.”

Brown said he will be talking with those groups in an attempt to get them to Natchez for city’s 300th birthday celebration in 2016. Brown has made a push to recruit meetings and conventions to the city for that year.

Brown said he also would be attending to regular parkway commission business that will happen at the meeting.

The meeting agenda includes presentations from the Sustainable Tourism Initiative, National Geographic Society, Mississippi River Connections Collaboration, National Park Service, the Department of Interior and Mississippi River Trails.

The commission will also be celebrating its 75th anniversary at the meeting.