The Impact of Destination Marketing

Gear is at the center of every Lake Tahoe trip, and the Gear Up campaign serves as a way to educate audiences on what they need for some of their favorite outdoor activities while also providing direct support and promotion of local businesses. Gear Up encourages visitors to be prepared ahead of their trip by leveraging local expertise to point out key locations and recommendations, and in turn spotlighting the shops from which visitors can purchase or rent their gear. Launched in June 2023, a landing page was developed and showcased four specific outdoor activities: hiking, biking, cross-country skiing and paddleboarding. Each activity had its own blog post including a collage, with engaging, interview-style videos highlighting a representative from the respective local gear shop. We look to grow the campaign and continue promotion via collaborative social media posts, newsletter features, and incorporating more Gear Up links as resources throughout the site in the coming months to bolster the North Lake Tahoe community.

The Go To Towns activation launched in spring 2023 and provided itineraries for four four-day trips, spending one day in each of the 12 unique towns in the region. These year-round, comprehensive itineraries outlined specific activities and businesses to visit, packing a visitor’s day with plenty of fun ways to explore from food to outdoor fun for all skill levels, while bringing attention and awareness to our local businesses. To promote the new itineraries, a landing page was developed along with badges for each town and an interactive online quiz that recommended which town to start with based off a visitor’s “travel personality.” These pieces were promoted on the website homepage, in e-newsletters and through social channels. As people visited the towns they were encouraged to submit the town they visited to get their digital badge. California Now “Travel Stories” for each town were also developed, highlighting the key locations in the itineraries. This Instagram Story-like content was then added to the site and shared with Google and Visit California for added organic impressions. The Go To Towns itineraries, quiz and landing page have received cumulative 5.4K views and counting, with the CA Now Stories generating more than 280K impressions via Google Search and Discover.

The LakeTahoeTravel.com website is designed and optimized to attract potential visitors and help them find the resources they need to plan their visit. We leverage this as a platform for visitor education and strengthening North Lake Tahoe’s economy. We are consistently elevating local businesses through our monthly blog as well as maintaining 700+ listings, which have garnered 215K+ views in 2023 alone and are tracking to outpace performance in 2024. We report back on traffic to these listings as well as to key areas across the site, making regular optimizations for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to increase the likelihood of users finding North Lake Tahoe through major search engines and clicking to convert the businesses’ individual websites. We create and continue to promote activations such as North Lake Tahoe Eats and Tahoe Trifecta to encourage visitors to find new ways to experience Lake Tahoe, from new restaurant favorites to itineraries that match their distinct traveler personality.