By Greyson Howard
Special to The Grass Valley Union
Wednesday, September 30, 2009


The Sierra Business Council and Sierra Nevada Conservancy are teaming up with National Geographic to put Truckee, Tahoe and the Sierra on the map.

The idea, being implemented by the National Geographic Society all around the world, is to create detailed, interactive maps to promote geotourism, and the Sierra Nevada is the latest region to enter.

“Basically, geotourism is a type of tourism that sustains a place,” said Steve Frisch, president of the Sierra Business Council.

The interactive maps highlight cultural, recreational, ecological and other points of interest based around an area's character, that allow prospective visitors to not only figure out what they want to do and where they want to go, but to connect them to the region and its issues, Frisch said.

“We can use this as an economic driver to sustain the region's character,” Frisch said. “But it's more than an economic development strategy.”

Beyond bringing tourists and their money, the geotourism map would also change tourism to a new model that would be more sustainable, said Bob Kingman, Mount Lassen Area Manager for the conservancy.

“Tourists are going to steward, and are going to value the region, and take care of it,” Kingman said. “That could help local communities that survive on tourism by developing tourists who are not so destructive or consumptive.”

Frisch said tying tourism to important issues in the Sierra will raise awareness, and it will also create a regional identity for the Sierra Nevada as a whole.

“There are icons like Tahoe and Yosemite, and I think a lot of people think that's the Sierra, but it's really so much more — 25 million acres of places that are really unique and special,” Kingman said.

All this starts with a map on a Web site.

The Sierra Nevada will be taken on a piece at a time, with regional geocouncils made up of local groups and people like chambers of commerce, conservation groups and lodging groups, identifying tourism assets, Frisch said.

That will all be compiled onto the map, easily browsable by potential visitors, he said.

A recently established geotourism map on National Geographic's Web site, the “Crown of the Continent,” which surrounds Glacier National Park in the U.S. and Canada, has grown to 700 assets, and also highlights local topics and how visitors can get involved, Frisch said.

Another map, surrounding the Yellowstone area, has gone from a nominating map to getting 45,000 hits a month since starting six months ago, he said.

“The Web site has embedded metrics to track success, and not just clicks but click-throughs booking lodging and other things,” Frisch said.

For the Sierra Nevada, Frisch said the groups plan to go beyond the other National Geographic maps, also adding YouTube videos, Flickr photos and social networking links from Twitter and Facebook.

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