NATCHEZ — Natchez’s historic homeowners will have the opportunity this spring to have their home tours assessed for advice on how to better attract tourists.

The Natchez National Historical Park is the recipient of a $23,000 grant through the Mississippi Delta Region Initiative. As part of that grant, the park has hired consultant Mary Ruffin Hanbury to come to the area and help provide perspectives on how the house tour experience can be better conducted, Natchez National Historical Park Superintendent Kathleen Jenkins said.

“She is going to be working this spring about identifying best practices, just to try to get our house tour experience ready for the 21st century market,” Jenkins said. “She will be meeting with people who are involved in the house tour process and listening to them talk about what they think they need.”

The initial meeting with Hanbury will be 5:30 p.m. today at the Natchez Visitor Reception Center theater. All of those who are involved in house tours are welcome to attend.

During Spring Pilgrimage, Hanbury will be meeting and doing face-to-face and telephone interviews with stakeholders in the house tour industry. She will also develop a questionnaire that will be available online for both the home owners and the visiting public, Jenkins said.

That information will be collected and Hanbury will write a final report that Jenkins said she hopes will be available by summer.

Jenkins said bringing in the consultant is a “thank you” to those who started house tours, because keeping the houses in shape for touring has helped preserve them, but it is also a recognition that the times and the people touring the houses are different than they were 80 years ago.

“I have a tremendous respect for the ladies who began house tours here in Natchez — they were designing the airplane while they were flying it,” she said. “Times change, and this is an acknowledgement of that.”

Now, Natchez needs to assess what it has and how it will offer it to the world.

Questions that need to be considered include how new technologies can be incorporated, how exhibits can be more interactive and what activities can be worked into tours for children, Jenkins said.

Likewise, homeowners could consider telling multiple perspectives to the old Natchez stories.

“There was a vast array of different people living in Natchez, and they might have looked at the same events differently,” Jenkins said. “And they might have thought different things were significant.”

Hanbury has previously worked as a historic consultant in Natchez. Her past work includes doing a tourism assessment for the sites noted as African-American tourism sites.