The Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau will operate its next fiscal year with a $1.16 million budget.

The VCVB Board of Directors Thursday approved the fiscal 2013 budget, about $15,170 more than its $1.15 million budget for 2012.The visitors bureau’s fiscal year begins Jan. 1.

The budget projects $1.152 million in revenue from a 1 percent countywide sales tax on hotel rooms and food and beverages sold in Vicksburg. The special hospitality tax forms the bulk of the bureau’s annual revenue.

“We did have a very good year this year with the (Grand Gulf) outage,” VCVB executive director Bill Seratt said. “Next year’s going to be phenomenal with all the local and national attention for the Civil War.”

The outage, a major overhaul project at Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station in Port Gibson, ran from January through June. The project employed about 4,000 people, many of whom stayed in Vicksburg hotels. During that period, monthly hospitality tax revenues ran in excess of $100,000.

Seratt believes the area will get the same boost as visitors come to Vicksburg and Warren County to observe the sesquicentennial of the Siege of Vicksburg. The observance includes a major program on Memorial Day weekend, and other events and conferences are planned for the area during the year.

Among the major expenses in the budget are $461,270 for salaries and benefits for the VCVB’s six full-time and nine part-time employees, and $540,350 for advertising and promotion to bring people to the area.

Separately, the board approved a $15,000 contribution to the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign to help pay for a $70,000 smartphone app being prepared for the park by the Civil War Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to the preserving Civil War battlefields and promoting educational programs about the Civil War. The app will be free to the public.

Friends executive director Bess Averett said the app will be available for iPod, iPhones and Android phones and is expected to be ready in March or April. It will feature audio and video displays that will describe what happened at stops in the park and provide an interactive map of the park.

She said the app also will include a VCVB logo that will lead visitors to a mobile site featuring information on other sights and attractions in Vicksburg.

In other action, the board:

• Learned hotel occupancy in October was up from the same period in 2011, but hospitality tax revenue was down about $1,625 from 2011.

Hotel occupancy was 53.2 percent in October, compared with 52.5 percent for October 2011. Tax revenue paid in October was $84,122, compared with about $85,747 in 2011. The tax figures run two months behind. The October figures are for taxes collected in August.

• Learned 4,145 people visited the VCVB’s tourist information centers in September, up 677 from 3,468 in 2011.

• Discussed pay raises for employees in executive session. Board chairman Annette Kirklin would not discuss specific raises, but said the raises are based on each employee’s job.