LTVA Bulletin – October

Welcome to the October edition of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority 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.

Lake Tahoe Resident Survey – We would love your thoughts and opinions!

As a resident of the Lake Tahoe region, we are vitally interested in gathering your perspectives and experiences related to tourism and outdoor recreation. We invite you to complete this critical 5–7-minute survey that will be used to help guide and improve the tourism and outdoor recreation management efforts. Your responses are anonymous and confidential.

At the end of the survey, you can opt in with your email address to be eligible to win a $200 Visa gift card. No one will call you. Thank you very much for your time!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LakeTahoeResident

Also, please visit https://stewardshiptahoe.org/ for more information about the project and to stay up to date and to sign up for an upcoming public input workshop on October 25 or 26 at a time and place that works for your schedule.

Explore Tahoe Visitor Center Has Record Summer

The LTVA operates the Explore Tahoe Visitor Center in the Heavenly Village in partnership with the City of South Lake Tahoe. Summer 2022 saw record-setting numbers of visitors utilizing the services there, and Visitor Information Specialists interacted with more than 14,000 people from June through September – an increase of 55% over 2021. Information on hiking and biking trails, beaches and water activities topped the list of inquiries, followed by lodging, dining and local recommendations. Visitors have access to free maps, guides and brochures on attractions and events to enhance their stay. Some visitors return to Explore Tahoe several times during their stay to have the LTVA staff assist with planning the next day’s activities. Smart phones have not replaced the need for face-to-face interaction as guests seek information and personal recommendations. Some of the literature available at Explore Tahoe now contains QR codes to be scanned for expanded information.

Visit California Localhood Stories Update

Visit Lake Tahoe staff have been working with Visit California’s “Localhood” team to produce engaging, visual stories for use across the Visit California homepage and google search function. The stories, which are similar to Instagram stories, are permanent, include links, and are searchable on Google’s search engine.

Localhood is powered by CrowdRiff, a travel-tech company based in Toronto, Canada working with over 800 travel brands around the world to help them tell their story through authentic, locally generated content.

Visual Stories are the most compelling way to share experiences with the world, and Localhood partnered with Google to bring them to the web, purpose-built for travel content.

From September 2021 to August 2022, Visit Lake Tahoe’s visual stories earned 899,000 Google impressions, 182,000 story views, and more than 100,000 total interactions.

Did You Know?

• Booking.com surveyed more than 29,000 travelers across 30 countries and discovered that 83% think that sustainable travel is vital, with 61% saying the pandemic has made them want to travel more sustainably in the future. 
• From January through August 2022, 868,402 Indians traveled to the US, or 82% of 2019 arrivals, the year when the highest number of Indians (approx. 1.4 million) visited the US. India is ranked at number 3 (not including Canada and Mexico), behind UK and Germany and ahead of France, Italy, South Korea and Australia. 
• In September the Visit Lake Tahoe website saw over 151,000 users, up 26% from the previous year and more than 145,000 new users, up 38% from the previous year.

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