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Visit Lake County reports growth in web traffic and bookings in 2024; tourism spending estimated at $200M
Summary
Visit Lake County presented its 2024 fiscal-year annual report showing increases in website traffic, social engagement and book-direct referrals; county tourism-related spending was estimated at about $200 million with food services and lodging as top sectors, and the TID and TOT remain the largest revenue sources for the district.
Visit Lake County presented its 2024 fiscal-year annual report to the Board on July 15, reporting year-over-year growth in web traffic, social-media followers and paid-search performance, and reiterating tourism’s local economic footprint.
The district said fiscal‑year 2024 page views reached about 449,000 with 286,000 users and 327,000 sessions (a 24% year-over‑year session increase). Visit Lake County reported 68,000 searches through its BookDirect plugin in 2024 that produced roughly 9,860 clicks to individual lodging properties’ websites, a performance metric staff said was useful even when the county cannot track final bookings. The TID assessment represented 37% of Visit Lake County’s revenue in 2024, with the county’s TOT contribution at about 27% and municipal partners (Clear Lake, Lakeport, Middletown, Robinson) making up the remainder.
Visit Lake County staff cited the Dean Runyon / Visit California study showing travel-related spending in Lake County of roughly $200 million in 2024, generating roughly $14.2 million in state and local tax revenue and supporting about 1,800 travel-related jobs. Food services was reported as the largest spending sector at about $60 million, followed by lodging and recreation.
Staff described marketing activity including organic search, paid search (about 48,000 clicks and 570,000 paid impressions), programmatic display video, paid social (67% increase in impressions year over year), and email/newsletter growth to roughly 17,000 contacts (an 89% year-over-year increase). Visit Lake County said its marketing priorities remain search and social, supplemented by cooperative trade-show activity and partnerships with the “North of Ordinary” marketing group (Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte).
Supervisors asked about the ability to track actual bookings and TOT generation tied to Visit Lake County’s campaigns; staff said BookDirect can report clicks to properties where operators use supported booking engines but many local mom-and-pop providers use systems that do not share full booking data. Staff said TOT collections in county fiscal years reported approximately $1.02 million for FY 2024–25 (calendar/fiscal reporting differences noted) and that Visit Lake County hopes to continue growing direct lodging referrals.
Ending: Visit Lake County said it plans a visitor magazine, expanded video assets, continued participation in cooperative trade shows, and more targeted social/video campaigns in 2025.
