This article is reprinted with permission from the Best of WC 2017 issue of Walnut Creek Magazine.

Scott Slocum

Regional Director of Sales & Marketing

Walnut Creek Convention & Visitors Bureau

 

Walnut Creek? A destination for business groups, meetings, and corporate events? With San Francisco, Napa or Monterey nearby? When Scott Slocum joined the Walnut Creek Convention and Visitors Bureau (WCCVB) in 2015 as its first Regional Director of Sales and Marketing, his first job was to develop convincing answers to these tough questions. It didn't take him long.

 

An East Bay native, raised in Danville, Slocum understood the amenities that draw so many to make Walnut Creek their home, could have the same appeal to meeting planners looking for a unique location for their group. Drawing on his education at Cornell University and background, which includes senior sales and marketing roles at the Claremont Resort & Spa, Berkeley's Hotel Shattuck Plaza, and The Orchard Hotels on Union Square, Slocum saw a growing trend among groups to find interesting, smaller town alternatives to the same old big cities.

 

In Walnut Creek, groups could find a vibrant, accessible, and clean downtown filled with first-class restaurants and shopping, walkable streets, all just a BART ride away from San Francisco. The story was easy to write. Getting the story out and noticed by meeting planners across the country has taken a little more work. Article continues