Several new videos will soon be released that feature Oxford and all it has to offer and will be available to use as marketing tools for the city, local businesses and developers.

Seven videos were produced by Joe York with the University of Mississippi Center for the Study of Southern Culture as a joint project between

Visit Oxford, the Oxford and Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Foundation.

Visit Oxford director Mary Allyn Hedges presented the videos to the Oxford Tourism Council Wednesday during its regular monthly meeting.

Each video is about two to three minutes long. There is one Oxford overall video that highlights much of what makes Oxford special. The other six videos all focus on one particular aspect of the community, including health care, business and industry, arts and culture, education, retirement and newcomers, and parks and recreation.

The videos feature local business people, government officials and local residents who give brief comments as to what makes Oxford a place people should want to visit or call home.

“I almost got teary-eyed,” said OTC president Stefano Capomazza after watching the main Oxford video.

The videos are being given some final edits and are expected to go live and be available for public viewing and sharing in about two weeks.

Hedges said Visit Oxford is completing building the page on its website to host the videos.

“Once they’re live, they’ll be available to whomever needs them to help promote Oxford,” Hedges said. “We wanted to break them down to make them more specific for groups, like Baptist may want to use the health care video, for example.”

In other business

Hedges announced Lafayette County was awarded a total of $23,300 in grants from the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area Alliance. Specifically $20,000 of those funds was awarded to Visit Oxford for way-finding signage to key cultural heritage sites.

The council approved the final report for the Oxford Film Festival’s community grant application and voted to release the final $3,000 of the $10,000 grant, and tabled a discussion to approve the final application for the Fiber Arts Festival, as some of the paperwork was not yet complete.

The hotel/motel occupancy report showed a 22 percent increase in January 2016 from January 2015, totaling 60 percent occupancy. Demand increased 42 percent from January 2015. The hotel/motel tax showed a 30 percent increase from January 2015 and brought in $26,691. The food and beverage 2 percent tax increased 5 percent and brought in $202,123 in taxes during January.