Lake Tahoe fell short of winning the recent Travelocity Roaming Gnome Cabin Fever: Finding a Cure Tour, by a mere 64 votes, leaving Utah as the destination of choice for the globe-hopping Gnome.

If the word “gnome” streamed into your Facebook and Twitter feeds over the last seven days you can thank Travelocity for adeptly pitting Lake Tahoe against Utah as part of a social media program designed to encourage fans to vote on their favorite ski destination. Facebook subscribers filled the Travelocity Roaming Gnome page with banter focused on who would rein victorious, which destination has better and more snow, après ski options and more. In the end, Utah edged out Tahoe by only 64 votes out of a total 285,482 cast, less than 2/100 of one percent.

“The competition did what it was designed to do for Travelocity while engaging the regional tourism industry, locals and our visitors in a friendly competition,” said Bill Hoffman, executive director of the Incline Village/Crystal Bay Visitors Bureau and chair of the Reno-Tahoe Regional Marketing Committee. “The Roaming Gnome always has a place in Tahoe as do the skiers and riders that call Utah, or for that matter any ski area, home."

The winter season is reaching its peak in the next few weeks, with nearly 14 feet of snowfall reported in January, and up to 165 inches of new snow at area resorts.

“The added attention Tahoe received through this promotion is something we can’t measure, however it did give us an opportunity to share why Tahoe is a great place for ski and ride and what we have to offer year round,” Hoffman said. “Additionally it showed that as a region we take our destination marketing seriously. From snow reports to a friendly gnome contest, visitors bureaus around the lake, in Reno, our regional hotels and resorts and even the states of Nevada and California got involved with the effort.  The attention this friendly competition garnered goes a long way in promoting our area.”

Tahoe has certainly not gone unnoticed, however. Last week, Lake Tahoe took home another important accolade capturing for the third year the "most popular ski destination in the U.S." ranking for air-and-hotel package bookings for travel in 2010 based on the Orbitz Insider Index.