LTVA Bulletin – March

Welcome to the March edition of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority’s South Shore Bulletin. Our goal is to highlight tourism trends, strategy, initiatives, and programs that increase visitor awareness, support our community and environment, and strengthen our economy.

BREAKING NEWS!

Go West Summit Coming to South Shore in 2024

The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority and Visit Lake Tahoe have received the honor of hosting the Go West Summit in 2024! The bid process for the prestigious conference was competitive and has rigorous hosting requirements. LTVA staff, involved in Go West Summit for many years, successfully demonstrated the destination’s ability to deliver an exceptional event at our new events center.

Go West Summit is a marketplace that brings together the highest quality suppliers in the western states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The Summit provides the international and U.S.-based receptive tour operators a venue to meet with suppliers from the American West to generate tourism business into the western United States. The Summit is regarded by participating tourism and travel professionals as a premier conference – among the best of its type – as well as an efficient and economical mechanism for booking international business. The 2024 Summit will take place February 26 – February 29.

LTVA Chief Marketing Officer, Tony Lyle, announces Visit Lake Tahoe as the host of Go West Summit 2024

Viral Social Media Post

On February 16, Visit Lake Tahoe posted an instagram video of a local black bear wiggling backward into his den that has since gone viral! In less than two weeks, the post has been seen by over 1.1 million accounts, and has been shared by over 30,000 people; a new record for a single post from the LTVA.

This social media success has come after hiring a new Content & Digital Marketing Specialist, Sam Pinsky, who now manages LTVA’s social media pages and assists with other functions including website content and development. Pinsky, along with LTVA’s Director of Marketing & Conference Sales, Stuart Maas, will attend the DMA West Tech Summit in Salt Lake City March 29-31 to further their knowledge of industry trends, products, and cutting-edge tools.

3rd Quarter 2022 Sales Tax

Climbing out of the pandemic period, the third quarter of 2022 was a bright spot for South Lake Tahoe and mirrors the stable occupancy and ADR increases the LTVA continues to monitor. This follows the LTVA’s resumption of domestic and international sales and marketing programs to pre-pandemic levels. Sales taxes collected in South Lake Tahoe in Q3 went up 29% as summer business improved. Receipts from July through September were 29.1% above the third sales period in 2021. Excluding reporting aberrations, actual sales were up 27.3%. Aberrations are from delayed payments, audits of receipts, and other reporting modifications.

Did You Know?

• LTVA is a member of the Regional Air Service Corporation whose goal is to promote air service into our region.
• Passenger traffic to the Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO) continues to be very strong, with January numbers higher than 2022 or even 2019. The ski season is really solid and during this time period the market also saw a return of significant business travel, for really the first time since the pandemic. Uber and Lyft operations returned to pre-pandemic transaction levels and those services are predominantly used by business travelers. These are all great signs and very encouraging for a strong 2023.

The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority is powered by the South Lake Tahoe Tourism Improvement District and the Tahoe Douglas Visitors Authority.