The Placer County Board of Supervisors January 24 approved the appointment of Karen Plank to the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association Board of Directors, as well as changes to the county’s contract and funding for NLTRA to continue its mission to promote tourism and business in the North Lake Tahoe region.

Plank will fill an unexpired term on the NLTRA board, representing the Placer County Board of Supervisors. The term for this position will expire Nov. 30, 2019.

“We are very excited to have Karen Plank representing Placer County on the NLTRA board of directors,” said Board Chairwoman Jennifer Montgomery, whose fifth district includes North Lake Tahoe to Auburn. “Karen will be instrumental to the County of Placer and the NLTRA in continuing to make North Lake Tahoe a world-class place to visit and an even better place to live.”

The NLTRA Board of Directors promotes, enhances, reinvigorates, coordinates and directs tourism for the economic betterment of the North Lake Tahoe region. Additionally, NLTRA operates as a chamber of commerce and visitors and convention bureau.

The board also approved an amendment to the NLTRA contract budget to allocate $12,371 from the marketing reserve to expand marketing services to include additional public relations and online advertising campaigns currently managed in partnership with the North Lake Tahoe Marketing Cooperative. With an additional board action to reprogram carryover funding from last year to this year, the amendment brings the contract total up to $7,887,485 at no new net cost to the county.

In a presentation to the Placer County Board of Supervisors, JT Thompson, tourism director for the NLTRA, unveiled a new marketing campaign for North Lake Tahoe called “Human Nature.”

Thompson’s presentation also included key marketing goals, marketing objectives and strategies, as well as a winter creative concept and marketing campaigns. These goals support community priorities identified in the 2015 Tourism Master Plan for North Lake Tahoe.

The 2015 Tourism Master Plan serves as a guiding document for future tourism investment and sets out priorities to continue to transform North Lake Tahoe into a national and international destination. A minimum of 60 percent of the transient occupancy tax collected in North Lake Tahoe is used to implement marketing programs and fund upgrades to infrastructure, visitor amenities and transit operations.

Other winter marketing campaign highlights include the Human Powered Sports campaign, which garnered over 30,000 online video views; 30-second Spartan Race television advertisements and “Spartan World Championships – The Road to North Lake Tahoe,” which aired on NBC; the Tahoe Local campaign, social media campaigns and other various online marketing campaigns.