NTCA remains focused on reinvesting revenues generated by tourism into impactful initiatives that address community priorities and benefit residents, local businesses and visitors. In total, over $25M was allocated last year through the TOT-TBID Dollars At Work program to make progress on workforce housing, traffic flow and transportation, trails and recreation improvements, litter and human impacts, accessibility and community enhancement. Read about the projects and programs that received funding in the 2023-24 Annual Report below.

Read the Annual Report Leer el informe anual

The California Travel Association announced that the North Tahoe Community Alliance received its 2024 Sustainability and Stewardship Award. The award recognizes a CalTravel member individual or organization that has successfully implemented sustainability and stewardship practices that enhance environmental health, manage visitor impacts, and improve the well-being of residents in their communities.

The NTCA was honored for its shift in focus from previously serving as a Destination Marketing Organization to becoming a Destination Management Organization focused on reinvesting tourism revenue into tangible solutions to benefit the natural environment and the community.

“On behalf of the NTCA staff and our board of directors, it’s an honor to be the recipient of this year’s CalTravel award for Sustainability and Stewardship. We have made tremendous progress in our community over the past several years as we’ve successfully begun reinvesting funds generated by tourism into local programs and initiatives that align with North Lake Tahoe community priorities, but we’re really just getting started. Our board and the committees we convene are actively committed to contributing to the triple bottom line of community vitality, economic health and environmental stewardship in our community.”

– Tony Karwowski, NTCA President and CEO

“The North Tahoe Community Alliance was recognized with the California Travel Association’s 2024 Sustainability and Stewardship Award because of their extraordinary and ongoing efforts to better manage outdoor recreation and tourism in their region. By reinvesting funds generated by tourism, they are making a difference as it relates to stewardship education, reducing litter, improving transportation, and advancing workforce housing initiatives that ultimately benefit residents, local businesses and the visitors of North Lake Tahoe.”

– Barb Newton, CalTravel President and CEO

The NTCA will be further recognized by the state association at its annual CalTravel Summit in September. Learn more about the NTCA’s efforts to leverage tourism revenues through the TOT-TBID Dollars At Work program below.

Learn More

The importance of the North Lake Tahoe Visitor Center continues to grow as evidenced by the increasing number of local business referrals and people visitor center staff have directly engaged with over the past year. In Tahoe City, Kings Beach, plus by phone, email and at events, visitor center staff engaged with almost 65,000 people, representing a 21% increase over the previous year.

Approximately 130 referrals to local restaurants and shops, historic mansions, campsites, museums and more were made every day of the year, totaling over 47,000 and representing a 19% increase as compared to last year. And, sales of merchandise sold through the visitor center, which includes the work of local artisans who often do not have their own storefronts, increased 39% in 2023-24.

With a permanent new visitor center coming online in Kings Beach mid-August, there will be even more opportunities to engage with residents, visitors, and support our local business community! Your TOT-TBID dollars are at work and we are proud to support the business community through these referrals.

Learn More about the Visitor Information Center here.

The ADU Accelerator program is out of the beta testing phase and is currently accepting interested homeowners as new applicants. Learn more below.

The Tahoe Housing Hub recently launched the ADU Accelerator program, modeled after Hello Housing’s successful Hello ADU program. The ADU Accelerator program aims to streamline the process of developing ADUs in North Lake Tahoe, providing comprehensive support to homeowners from start to finish. By participating, homeowners will have the unique opportunity to be among the first to benefit from these services at no cost! The program support includes:

1. Feasibility Assessment: The Tahoe Housing Hub evaluates the property and helps establish a viable project vision that fits within your resources.
2. Design and Planning: The Tahoe Housing Hub provides professional design referrals and coordinates with the chosen team on design, cost estimating and optimization.
3. Permitting: The Tahoe Housing Hub guides your project through the permitting process.
4. Construction Management: The Tahoe Housing Hub supports the entire construction process, ensuring effective project management.
5. Lease Up: The Tahoe Housing Hub assists with market evaluation, and property management referrals, and provides lease templates.

The Tahoe Housing Hub is seeking homeowners who are flexible and understanding, as this is a new program, but who are also committed to the process. The feedback received through this process will be invaluable in helping them refine their services to ensure the program’s success.

If you are interested in participating, please complete the fillable form below and email it back to Karolina Scarcia, Tahoe Housing Hub Housing Development Project Manager, at karolina@tahoehousinghub.org. She will contact you to schedule a phone call and share more about the services and approach.

The thriving Kings Beach community will soon be home to a permanent, year-round Visitor Information Center. Designed to serve as a hub for visitors and the business community, the facility will house an educational video exhibit created by the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, a retail component where local makers and artisans can feature their works, and a well-informed staff happy to give tips and insights in-person to all who enter and to connect visitors with the local business community in support of the region’s economic health. Additionally, there will be a satellite office for the North Tahoe Chamber.

A North Tahoe Chamber Mixer and Grand Opening celebration is planned for Thursday, August 15 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. that will be open to the public.

Following the grand opening event, the new Visitor Center will be open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

The new Kings Beach Visitor Information Center is located at 8611 North Lake Blvd. at the intersection of SR-28 and Racoon Street. Learn more about North Lake Tahoe’s Visitor Centers at http://www.northtahoecommunityalliance.com/visitor-center/.

The North Tahoe Community Alliance is seeking two more candidates for the newly formed TOT Advisory Committee. The committee merges the responsibilities of the former TOT and CAP committees and streamlines efforts to direct the roughly $10M of Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenues generated by overnight stays in local hotels and short-term rentals in North Lake Tahoe. 

The NTCA is currently seeking applicants for:

• One additional member who represents workforce housing with knowledge or background in housing planning, construction, and/or financing, with experience or knowledge navigating regulatory frameworks and developing community consensus around housing projects.
• One additional representative who could represent the Donner Summit area of Placer County.

Applications are now closed.

Applications will be accepted from June 10 – July 10, 2024. The NTCA Board of Directors will seat the two additional committee members at their August 7, 2024 meeting.

The TOT Advisory committee is comprised of 13-15 regional business and community representatives who will recommend TOT funding for projects and programs aligning with community priorities of the TOT-TBID Dollars at Work Program. Committee members will provide valuable input and help guide the work of the NTCA. Committee positions require a two-year commitment, with typical committee meetings taking place once per month and lasting 1-3 hours per meeting.

Learn more about the committee and the application process here. For questions on the application process, or to request a paper application, please email tara@northtahoecommunityalliance.com.

In a recent 101.5 Tahoe Truckee Radio Community Spotlight, NTCA Marketing Director, Kirstin Guinn, shared three key initiatives funded by TBID dollars that fall into the marketing world to promote environmental stewardship to residents and visitors alike.  

Listen Now

What is the TBID?

The TBID, or Tourism Business Improvement District, is how North Lake Tahoe generates revenue from tourism and shopping locally. The business community agreed on a self-assessment of the revenue that tourism generates in restaurants, retail shops, and activity providers like rental shops. Those tourism dollars then get funneled back into the community through the TOT-TBID Dollars At Work program. 

Clean, Drain and Dry with the Tahoe Water Trail

• NTCA is investing TBID dollars into a partnership with the Lake Tahoe Water Trail. The water trail has been around for years – it’s 72 miles of liquid fun – and this partnership expands education around stopping the spread of invasive species in Lake Tahoe and the surrounding lakes. This campaign focuses on the role that “Clean, Drained, and Dry” plays when it comes to inflatable paddleboards. New Zealand Mud Snails can be transported in just a few drops of water – think about the water that collects in the folds of a paddleboard or the paddle. NTCA is enabling the Lake Tahoe Water Trail to expand its outreach to rental shops in North Lake Tahoe’s drive-up markets and educate paddleboarders about the importance of “Clean, Drain, and Dry” before they launch. 

Learn About the Lake Tahoe Water Trail

Expanding Bike Valets with the Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition

• NTCA is working with the Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition to create more bike valets around the North Shore this summer. Last summer, the Bicycle Coalition, a group of passionate and entirely volunteer locals, wanted to offer more bike valets around North Lake Tahoe but needed resource support to execute the vision. This summer, TBID dollars will enable the organization to purchase additional valet set-ups and hire a part-time coordinator to increase bike valets in the region, reducing cars on the road.

Learn About the Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition

Sierra Nevada Alliance Ambassador Program

• For the second consecutive summer, NTCA is investing in the Sierra Nevada Alliance Ambassador program. In partnership with the Sierra Nevada Alliance and Truckee Trails, the program hires local youth to hang out on popular beaches and trailheads and talk to people about responsible stewardship, model good behavior, and hand out dog poop bags. This is an impactful way for young people to interact with the public. They also provide data for the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, and in some cases, they even find smoldering illegal campfires and put them out. NTCA plans to continue to grow this program with our partners and make it the most coveted summer job in Tahoe!

Learn About Ambassador Program

These partnerships are an invaluable piece of the puzzle when it comes to human impact mitigation around North Lake Tahoe. They are a great investment of TOT-TBID Dollars At Work. 

The North Lake Tahoe community is invited to attend a Washoe cultural event, hosted by the Gatekeeper’s Museum on Saturday, May 18. Members of the Washoe community, independent artists and conservation groups are holding a community-centered conversation about the Rights of Nature and the future of Da’aw’ ‘Tahoe through decolonizing the design of a stewarding process that holds Indigenous Knowledges at the Center.

Artists, scientists and Washoe basketmakers, singers and Knowledge Keepers are creating the Future Gardens together, a process of land stewarding that prioritizes indigenous leadership and the material, cultural and spiritual plants of importance to the Wà:šiw. 

This event will include Washoe-led song, dance, stories, demonstrations and discussions as well as museum and garden tours. 

Plant seeds and imagine together!

Hosted on the patio by the Gatekeeper’s Museum
Saturday, May 18
11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
130 West Lake Blvd., Tahoe City, CA

Recently, NTCA president and CEO Tony Karwowski penned the op-ed you’ll find below. This op-ed was published in the Sierra Sun.

Tourism is Benefitting Our Community More Than Ever
By Tony Karwowski, NTCA president and CEO

Although the debate continues to be ongoing with regard to whether tourism benefits our region, the fact is our local economy relies on it. Tourism is what keeps many local businesses open, provides career and other job opportunities to many of our region’s residents, and generates TOT and TBID funding that our community is able to reinvest into programs, services, and infrastructure improvements we need.

The NTCA’s focus since early 2022 has been to establish the framework and processes that allow for the reinvestment of the funds tourism generates, with local oversight. Ultimately, TOT and TBID-generated funds are what allow our community to make progress on workforce housing initiatives, transportation and infrastructure projects, mitigate some of the tourism-related impacts felt by those who live and work here, and enhance quality of life for us all.

I’m pleased to report that with significant community involvement and the ongoing participation of dedicated volunteer committees, processes to reinvest tourism dollars have been enacted and are ensuring tourism is giving back in ways that matter. In fact, because of the relatively recent formation of the North Lake Tahoe Tourism Business Improvement District (NLT-TBID), our region has more tourism-generated funding to allocate to community priorities than ever before.

In April, at the recommendation of the volunteer committees it convenes, comprised of local business and community members, the NTCA Board of Directors voted to invest a total of $4.3 million in tourism-generated funding. Through the TOT-TBID Dollars At Work program’s Annual Grant Cycle, 13 projects that benefit the North Lake Tahoe community were recommended for grants. This investment provides access to matching funds of over $6.3 million, bringing the total investment—in specific workforce housing projects, trails and recreation improvements, litter clean-up, accessibility, and business incubator efforts—to over $10 million.

The projects that received funding through the Annual Grant Cycle are in addition to the 17 projects that were selected in Fall 2023 to receive up to $20 million in funding support over three years through the Sponsorship & Multi-Year Investment Program. The impact of the projects that received sponsorship funding will be felt through workforce housing, trail transit corridor, transportation and tourism impact-related efforts, and have the potential to unlock matching funds up to $35.3 million that can be leveraged over the next three years.

There’s no doubt the TOT-TBID Dollars At Work program is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It has provided our community with a structured way to reinvest TBID and TOT dollars generated in North Lake Tahoe in support of initiatives that contribute to our community’s vitality, economic health and environmental stewardship. These funds are actively being used to address priorities surfaced through community forums, workshops, and surveys, including workforce housing, economic development, transportation, sustainability, tourism mitigation, and trails.

This is just the beginning. The first Annual Grant cycle is now complete, and we are already looking ahead to the next one that will launch in early Fall 2024. Tourism dollars are being spent to improve what matters most to North Lake Tahoe residents, businesses, and visitors.

Learn more about the projects and initiatives that have been funded by tourism here.