Like Terry Knight, the Board of Directors of the Lake County Tourism Improvement District sees the tremendous value of tourism marketing. The Lake County Tourism Improvement District (LCTID) Board is in total agreement with Terry that Lake County has many beautiful and amazing assets which are attractive to potential visitors. As Terry points out, our challenge is making folks aware of all our community has to offer including the many destinations and activities he identified in his column published on August 18, 2021 in the Record-Bee.
The Board of Supervisors established the LCTID in 2018 with the mission of promoting tourism. Since that time, the LCTID Board has worked to align our tourism promotion efforts with the latest technology and best practices within the destination marketing industry. We started by updating the Lake County tourism website – www.LakeCounty.com – with the goal of making it the “go to” location for anyone planning a vacation in Lake County whether it is built around water, hiking or wineries. The site is optimized for mobile since the data shows 73% of our visitors come to the website on their phones.
In 2021 we launched campaigns on Google, Facebook, Instagram and in widely-circulated publications like Better Homes and Garden, Travel + Leisure, Parents and VIA Magazine. This July our website hit an all-time high of over 32,000 unique visitors. Our social media has grown tremendously from 14,200 followers to over 31,000, a 125% increase. Best of all, that growth has come mainly from two of Lake County’s most important drive markets, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento Valley.
We are also greatly expanding our reach through public relations efforts by recently hosting Greg Thomas, editor of Lifestyle and Outdoors for the San Francisco Chronicle; he named Kelseyville one of “8 Small Towns to Visit this Summer in California.” Travel Influencer Josh McNair, with over 94,000 YouTube followers, visited this spring and his two videos featuring Lake County rocketed Los Angeles to the No.1 city for unique visitors to our website. In July, we launched the next phase of our “Clearly Different” campaign with billboards in San Francisco and Sacramento. Combined, these billboards will generate 12 million positive impressions of Lake County.
On another front, our monthly opt-in e-newsletter has grown to over 8,000 recipients and each month we see that many of our readers visit our website and spend over four minutes on the site. In another effort to expand our reach, we have developed a close partnership with Visit California, submitting Lake County feature articles for their website which attracts over 30 million unique visitors each month.
Are these efforts making a difference? In talking to lodging operators, we hear occupancy is increasing and the average room rate is on the rise. This is good news for other tourism-facing businesses in the county as data shows for every $1 spent on lodging accommodations, visitors spend almost $3 in other businesses such as restaurants, activities and retail.
We know that we have much more work ahead of us. I often say, “If we want to be a tourist destination we have to act like a tourist destination.” That means keeping our business open seven days a week, providing essential services to visitors like shuttles, guides and experiences, and keeping our towns and parks clean and safe.
We see a very bright future for tourism in Lake County and will continue to innovate with the times and build a positive brand for Lake County.
Brian Fisher is executive director of the Lake County Tourism Improvement District
