Events

TAHOE’S

TOURISM TIPPING

EDITOR’S NOTE: For the next few weeks, Tahoe Weekly will be covering the tourism impacts that locals and visitors alike have experienced this summer . This is the first part in the series. POINT

LOCALS URGE OFFICIALS TO ADDRESS TRASH AND OVERTOURISM

STORY BY PRIYA HUTNER

ourism is the lifeblood of Tahoe’s economy. The pristine beauty of the mountains, lakes and forests offer thousands of acres in which to recreate. The influx of tourists ebbs and flows seasonally and swells during the summer and winter. T

Visitors book hotels and short-term rentals, eat at the restaurants, shop in the retail stores and take to the outdoors. However, the impact of the sheer numbers of visitors has been overwhelming this summer due to the pandemic, according to local officials and locals.

After many months of sheltering at home and with no end to the pandemic in sight, visitors have taken to their cars to escape to Tahoe. Second homeowners have relocated to their second homes since they can work remotely, and many schools have moved to distance learning.

On any given day, beaches around Lake Tahoe and the surrounding areas are overrun by visitors. Finding space in a campground is hard, permits for backpacking are difficult to procure, hiking and biking trails and beaches are packed.

The number of day visitors and short-term rentals have brought challenges to the Tahoe Sierra. Garbage, lack of garbage receptacles, graffiti, lack of public bathrooms, illegal parking, traffic issues and noise have created a divisive situation between local residents and government officials and, in some cases, with visitors.

At the heart of these issues is the larger question of how many visitors can the Tahoe Sierra handle. Many locals say there are too many visitors and the area has reached the tipping point. Local officials, however, report they don’t have the data to tell where the people are coming from – are they second homeowners using their vacation homes more, more day visitors, more short-term rentals or more visitors spending the entire summer here. No one has the answer. What is clear is that locals are fed up and are demanding action.

TRACKING VISITORS

Officials and tourism agencies say they have no way to quickly track the number of visitors in the Tahoe Sierra. Data from the transient occupancy tax (TOT) collected by short-term rentals is not available for months after a stay. Sales tax tracks spending but does not provide any data on who is making the purchases.

The region is governed by five counties — Placer, Nevada, Eldorado, Douglas and Washoe — along with the City of South Lake Tahoe, the City of Carson City and the Town of Truckee. Within the Tahoe Sierra, there is also the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority and Truckee Tourism Business Improvement District that market the region to visitors.

In Truckee, one of the only incorporated cities in the Tahoe Sierra, Mayor Dave Polivy says the town estimates there’s been a 10 to 15 percent increase in home use in the town based on increased sewer flows this summer. However, they don’t know if that’s from vacation rentals or second homeowners using their homes more.

“There are higher occupancy rates. We are seeing a good amount of healthy tourism and we expected this due to less people flying,” says Polivy.

The City of South Lake Tahoe, the only city in the Tahoe Basin and with one of the largest full-time populations, is also being heavily impacted by the number of people visiting the area and is wrestling with issues of trash, graffiti and traffic.

“We are seeing the same issues as other places around the lake. We’ve seen more people here this summer due to COVID,” says South Lake Tahoe Mayor Jason Collin. “I don’t think it’s sustainable for the long haul. We’re used to having a much higher flow of people in the summertime and then typically about this time of the year, it starts to trail off. We’ll see what happens when other communities start going back to school. I don’t know if it’s going to trail off.”

The South Shore city also doesn’t have a way to track visitor data in real time.

“I think the best way to do it would probably be based on cell phone data, which we don’t have access to. But it would be something that would be valuable to understand what that impact is in real time,” says Collin. “We have a lot of second homeowners on the South Shore; over 60 percent of our homes are second homes. And a lot of those people decided to shelter in place here, so that’s increased the number of people staying in our area, as well staying in short-term rentals and hotels.”

According to Collin, weather is also a factor in increased visitor numbers: “It’s been hot. And so, whenever it’s hot, we get more people here. I think during this time, we have more people looking for a place to escape and Tahoe is a beautiful place to escape to. However, with COVID, we still need to be vigilant.”

“I don’t think it’s too