NATCHEZ — A new $2 occupancy tax won’t likely bring in the $600,000 tourism officials have been quoting.

A more accurate estimate would be $474,000.

Convention Center Director Walter Tipton — who created the first estimate — said Wednesday that his numbers were a bit generous.

The original equation multiplied about 1,000 rooms by a 65 percent occupancy rate.

However, those calculations only reached $474,000. Then Tipton subtracted a portion from complimentary rooms and the number dwindled closer to $400,000.

It took some backtracking on Tipton’s part to find out where those numbers came from.

Tipton said Wednesday he was counting rooms at the unopened Grand Soleil hotel and Best Western hotel in his calculations.

And, using a 65 percent rate occupancy rate is no exact science either, he said.

“The 65 percent is based on a national average and a local average here,” Tipton said.

But it’s hard to know occupancy rates exactly, said Sally Durkin, media liaison for the Natchez Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Hotels and bed and breakfasts should report their occupied rooms to tourism officials, but sometimes they don’t.

Tipton did say $600,000 is a little generous — especially when adding in two hotels that aren’t even open.

“To be conservative, they should probably be looking more at a $400,000 budget,” he said.

Durkin reiterated that it’s hard to come up with a concrete budget, especially in the first year of collecting the monies.

“There’s no way we’ll know what a realistic budget is until we collect from the very first year we have the tax,” she said.

An effort is being made to get a better idea on how to properly calculate, however, by Tourism Director Connie Taunton.

“Connie is sending an e-mail out, trying to get an inventory … so we can get a real number,” Durkin said.

She said trying to come up with an exact number of what the budget will be through this tax is impossible at this stage.

“It’s a putting the cart before the horse thing,” Durkin said. “We’re not new to the tax game by any means, but this is a new more solid figure-based ballgame.”

Even then, the budget will never be steady.

“We won’t know until at least a full year of collections and that of course will fluctuate from year to year,” she said.