The Lake Tahoe Basin is one of the nation's most popular recreation areas. Its scenic beauty and unique blend of entertainment and recreational opportunities attract millions of visitors annually. Despite significant development and alteration of the landscape for over a century, the Tahoe Region continues to be an attraction to tourists and visitors due to its powerful and stunning inherent landscape character, which successfully maintains visual dominance over most of the area.
Intense marketing and promotion of the Basin's attributes by local gaming, resort and marketing organizations substantially stimulate the tourist economy, while increasing the demand for use of the lands available to the public for recreation. There is a growing awareness in the Basin recreation and tourism community for the importance of maintaining and preserving Tahoe's scenic qualities, and of the fact that a healthy local economy depends upon the attractiveness of the lake and the surrounding forest lands.
The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TPRA) Regional Plan for the Basin states the "primary function of the region shall be as a mountain recreation area with outstanding scenic and natural values. A study commissioned by the TPRA to assess recreation resource allocation and use estimated the existing base-year (1994/95) demand day visits at 51,572 visits for summer day recreation, 10,500 visits for summer overnight recreation, and 46,917 visits for winter recreation. The study estimates over the next ten years, the demand for day visits will increase by more than 13 percent. Peak summer day population, including overnight and day-use visitors, is nearly 300,000. There were approximately 23,000,000 visitor days at Lake Tahoe last year, which is approximately four times that of Yosemite.
Local, state, and federal governments are working to ensure opportunities and capacity are adequate to meet current and projected demands. The Tahoe Rim Trail, 150 planned miles of trail on state and federal land circumscribing the ridge around Lake Tahoe's watershed is nearing completion. The TRPA Bicycle Master plan includes the Lake Tahoe Bikeway 2000 project, which calls for the loop around the lake to be completed by July 2000. Significant urban recreation facilities have been built, including the Incline Village Recreation Center, Douglas County's Kahle Park and the Pat Lowe Memorial Bikeway and Lake Tahoe Interagency Visitors Center in Meyers. The California Tahoe Conservancy's public lake access project in Kings Beach has also been completed.
Both public and private sector recreation and service providers have been evolving into a year-round season of operation, instead of the traditional winter-summer core periods. Between 1960 and 1990, the population of the Tahoe Basin Region increased five times. To meet the demand of recreationalists, numerous businesses have relocated to the Tahoe Basin. At the same time tourists have come to expect higher quality and more services and facilities. All sectors have been struggling with an aging infrastructure that makes it more difficult for Tahoe to compete with other nationally known recreation destinations with more modern amenities.
The various private and public sector providers in the Basin are working collaboratively to seek a balance between the preservation of the environment and the development of a sustainable economy. In 1991, individuals in Tahoe's recreation community formed the Tahoe Coalition of Recreation Providers, which serves as a forum for recreational providers to regularly come together to discuss common issues and seek common solutions. Also, to support needed programs the Forest Service is piloting a fee demonstration project in the Desolation Wilderness and is seeking alternative funding sources through the National Forest Foundation and Tahoe Heritage Foundation. Public-private venture programs are being developed along with collection funding agreements supporting enhancement projects within those resorts under permit to the Forest Service.