A group of Bayou La Batre leaders will travel to Florida today to tour two Gulf Coast cities as examples of revamped seafood villages.

But one key Bayou La Batre official will be staying home: Mayor Stan Wright.

Organizers said the two-day trip to Carrabelle, Fla., and Apalachicola, Fla., will be a chance for Bayou La Batre leaders to explore how other Gulf Coast communities redeveloped and attracted tourists. Bayou La Batre, historically dependent on the seafood industry, faces questions about how to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina's destruction two years ago.

Wright said Tuesday that he will decline going to Florida out of support for the older seafood and shipbuilding industries, whose leaders could perceive the trip as a move to replace them with condos and retail shops.

"Right now, we're surviving," Wright said from his oyster shop. "We're not Carrabelle and maybe we don't want to be Carrabelle. ... If we don't support what we have and some of these people want to leave, then how is the city itself going to exist?"

Officials in Apalachicola and Carrabelle, part of Florida's "Forgotten Coast" on the Panhandle, have said they have attracted tourists by emphasizing their communities' history and natural landscape as alternatives to high-rise beach resorts such as Destin, Fla.

Bud Robertson, Bayou La Batre Area Chamber of Commerce board member who helped organize the trip, said members of the City Council, Planning Board and chamber will be attending the tours.

"The Bayou is sort of at a turning point," Robertson said. "I don't think it hurts at all ... to see what some other people have done, whether you like it or not. Sooner or later, we need to develop a vision for the Bayou. ... What do we want to be 15 to 20 years from now? Are we still going to be a seafood town? Are we still going to be a boat-building town? Is there any room for diversity?"

The city and Alabama Power Co. -- where Robertson works as business office manager -- are splitting the $4,000 trip expenses, Robertson said.

Questions over how to develop the town and strengthen the local economy have confronted Bayou La Batre for years, further intensified by the need to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina wiped out homes and other buildings.

A plan by the Urban Land Institute in 2006 recommended that the city develop its waterfront property into an eco-tourism hub with kayaking and canoeing to the nearby Grand Bay wilderness preserve, among other suggestions.

Councilwoman Debi Downey said the plan illustrates how the seafood industry and the tourism industry could work together.

"That is why this trip was formed, so that we can go look at a working waterfront where the two have merged," Downey said.

Rising fuel prices and economic pressures from foreign seafood imports have put a strain on the seafood industry nationwide, Downey said, and "our city needs to look at something else to bring in revenue and I see that tourism is a good thing."

Brett Dungan, president of Master Marine Inc. shipbuilders in Bayou La Batre, said the city needs a comprehensive zoning plan to protect the waterfront businesses and any new industries.

"I would welcome the mayor and council in traveling to other areas that have had to grapple with these waterfront issues," Dungan said. "It's more complicated than to characterize this as a 'condo vs. no condo' issue."

Bayou La Batre officials will tour Carrabelle today and Apalachicola on Thursday.