LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – In a winter marked by warm temperatures and a low snowpack, how did Tahoe’s tourism and businesses fare?
Despite receiving near-average snowfall, the warm temperatures and long dry spells led to a rapid, early melt, causing the winter to feel milder than ideal.
Yet, stats reveal that the winter did not deter visitors as much as sentiment or perspective might suggest.
“From a tourism perspective, the winter has been relatively resilient,” Jackie Calvert with Visit Truckee Tahoe said.
In the Truckee area, Calvert said lodging occupancy softened slightly at times, but was only down about 2% overall from November through early April compared to the same time last year. Average daily rates remained strong and even increased slightly.
Parameters such as lodging occupancy, average daily rates, lodging revenue and spending are measures of visitation. Whether these numbers were up or down varies slightly from one region to the next.
In the North Tahoe region, occupancy took a harder hit, down over 11% compared to last year, according to a report from the North Tahoe Community Alliance. Airbnb bookings were also down almost 7%. Although average daily rates increased by over 6%, it wasn’t enough to offset the decline in occupancy, resulting in a 10% fall in revenue.
It’s a different story in the South Lake Tahoe region with lodging occupancy up 4.2% from last year. Average daily rates fluctuated but held steady, trending slightly down by 0.52% compared to last winter. Revenue rose and fell with occupancy and daily rate, but was slightly down overall from last winter by 1.32%. Spending was also down most months and overall by 3.44%.
In addition to the weather, the Tahoe region was also contending with national trends. 2025 was the first year hotels experienced an annual decline in revenue per available room since COVID, as international travel declined.
While those hotel numbers started to rebound in the winter, geopolitical conflict in the Middle East led to rising inflation, high fuel and air travel costs, placing more pressure on travel.
Compared with ski destinations facing similar weather patterns and international travel challenges, Tahoe showed resilience, with its losses more muted than those of other ski destinations, like Colorado.
“That’s somewhat unusual for us to share the same weather patterns and anecdotally, led to some winter sports enthusiasts shopping around for good conditions,” Carol Chaplin, president and CEO of Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, said. “We may have stayed fairly stable because of visitors changing destination plans.”
Although gas prices went up, the strain on travel may have helped Lake Tahoe, which is just a tank of gas away from many locations.
“So those who would go further away, fly, or drive may cut back,” Jerry Bindel, general manager and area managing director of Forest Suites, said, “If you’re doing two tanks or three tanks and you’re driving all over the west, you may retract a bit from that kind of travel, and that’s where we think that it’s good for us.”
This article is part one of a two-part series. Hear from a recreation, lodging, restaurant and bar in next week’s article.
