John Buck, the new director of Western regional sales for the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, has a somewhat misleading title.
Unlike most salespeople, Buck will never recommend a specific product in his new post. In addition, he will never deal with events at the L.A. Convention Center.
Instead, he will gather information about the requirements of events that are coming to the L.A. area, and provide event organizers with a list of the local hotels that could accommodate the event and its attendees’ lodging.
Funded by a percentage of the hotel occupancy tax and by private industry sources, the bureau’s three-person sales team tries to keep member hotels booked with events and occupants.
Buck’s job usually starts when he gets a call from an organization interested in having an event in Los Angeles. He handles everything from family reunions to major national conventions that require lodging for 8,000 or more.
Buck tries to find out what the group needs. Do they want to be near the beach or their corporate offices downtown? How much are they willing to pay? How many people are attending?
After narrowing the field, Buck provides them with a list of hotels that could fit the bill.
In Los Angeles, that list can be pretty long. “I’m the expert,” Buck says. “I know what hotel will fit with your program.”
Buck is no stranger to local hotels. After graduating from USC in 1991 with a marketing degree, Buck got his first sales job at the Red Lion Inn in Glendale. He already had experience working as a bellman, at the phones and at the front desk.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau hired him away from the Sheraton Grande Hotel in downtown. At the Sheraton, he marketed the hotel to companies that were considering holding an event in the L.A. area.
Buck spent 1997 in Chicago, where the Convention and Visitors Bureau has an office. (The bureau also has offices in Washington D.C. and New York, and last month it opened an office in Tokyo.) Like their counterparts in L.A., these sales people sell Los Angeles as a destination. While in Chicago, for example, Buck was responsible for selling the American Bar Association on holding its annual convention in Los Angeles.
That upcoming mid-year convention will bring an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 attendees to town, and will generate about 9,000 total room nights for local hotels.
Buck said his just-completed year in Chicago served to remind him of his enthusiasm for Los Angeles.
“A lot of exciting things are happening here in L.A.,” he said. “The new Getty Center is beautiful, and the new sports center (Staples Center) is going to be an important step for revitalizing downtown. Any time there’s something new and exciting going on, people want to come and check it out.”
Lauren Hollingsworth
