How Savannah Turned Style Into Strategy

Destinations can extend their storytelling beyond traditional tourism channels by embedding themselves into culture. This session walks through how Visit Savannah partnered with LoveShackFancy and Saks Fifth Avenue to let the destination live naturally inside a luxury retail and fashion brand's world — generating earned media, cultural relevance, and measurable results without leading with tourism messaging. The takeaway isn't the partner. It's the strategic approach, and how destinations of any size can apply it.

Takeaways:

• Assess  brand alignment and audience overlap before pursuing a cultural partnership,  using the Savannah × LoveShackFancy collaboration as a real-world example.
• Design lifestyle partnerships to prioritize cultural relevance and earned   storytelling, allowing the destination to live naturally within a partner’s   world rather than forcing traditional tourism messaging or direct   conversion.
•  Apply lessons learned from the partnership by identifying what Visit   Savannah would refine next time.