Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tourism topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Plumas County tourism leaders outline new branding strategy and ask for better lodging data to track TOT revenue
Summary
Plumas County tourism officials presented a strategy shift from listing attractions to promoting authentic visitor experiences, announced new advisory committees and a marketing contract, and asked the county for help improving lodging reporting and TOT compliance to establish baseline metrics.
Tourism leaders told the Plumas County Board of Supervisors on April 28 that the county's visitor strategy will shift from simply listing attractions to marketing "authentic experiences" and building measurement systems to track whether those efforts increase visitation.
"It's about people. Our residents are not the backdrop. They define the place," Sharon Roberts, executive director of the county tourism agency, said in a presentation of the 2025 annual report and early 2026 work. Roberts said the agency has engaged an external marketing firm, conducted focus groups across the county and will form two advisory committees for marketing and arts and culture to keep community voices in strategy development.
The presentation emphasized using data-driven approaches to measure outcomes. Supervisors pressed the tourism team on baseline measurements for transient occupancy tax (TOT) and visitor counts. "We don't have that information yet," Roberts acknowledged, and asked the board to help by improving lodging-provider reporting forms and assembling lists of noncompliant short-term rentals.
County Treasurer staff and tourism representatives also described problems with the county's TOT software and with vendors posting data. Treasurer'office staff said they have begun coordination meetings with other counties and vendors to address posting issues and recommended piloting online TOT filing to improve compliance.
Board members and staff noted prior commissioned research that estimated missing TOT revenue in past years; tourism staff said an older Granicus analysis suggested hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncollected TOT but that exact baselines need updating. Supervisors offered to help refine quarterly lodging forms and work with short-term rental registries to improve accuracy.
The presentation did not request direct funding changes at the meeting; instead, tourism leaders asked for staff-level cooperation and improved reporting mechanisms. The board took no separate action on the presentation but approved related consent items and continued with the agenda.
