Savor the Central Coast on hold this year
The 2015 Savor the Central Coast took place for the sixth year at Santa Margarita Ranch.
Food and wine event is going on the road
–Savor the Central Coast will go on the road with Visit San Luis Obispo County this year, the organization’s president and CEO, Chuck Davison said, to food and wine events around California and to target areas, such as Las Vegas.
The Visit SLO County Board of Directors took that action in the same motion as it decided to temporarily put the event on hold Tuesday morning.
Davison said the board is accepting proposals from event partners that may like to put on the event. “I would suggest that, as we are coming up on February, that the Savor the Central Coast event as we have known it … will likely not occur in 2016.”
The proposal before the board on Tuesday was recommended by the Visit SLO County marketing committee. Davison said there could be a Savor event this year somewhere.
“There’s been a rumor that Savor is going away, that’s not the case. Savor is in the change phase while we explore opportunities,” Davison said. “We already have one company that has already indicated that they’d like to run [the event].”
The local tourism organization owns the Savor brand and while it considered selling the brand, the board decided to retain ownership to keep control of the event. The event took place at the Santa Margarita Ranch and cities around the county for six years, Davison said that 43 percent of the attendees to the 2015 event were from outside of SLO County.
“That was the highest number for the history of the event,” Davison said.
Davison said Rob Rossi, one of the Santa Margarita Ranch owners, was at Tuesday’s meeting, offering his support of the event. Updates on Savor events will be on the Savor the Central Coast website, and updates on Savor going on the road will be on its social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
“We love the locals participating in the event, this event was not grown for the locals,” Davison said. “Our focus on Savor is always tourism driven.”
The board oversees the county’s tourism marketing district, which meets the third Tuesday of the month at different locations around the county. This month’s meeting was held at Allegretto Vineyard Resort in Paso Robles.
