Savannah, Georgia is considered one of America’s “Bucket List” cities – a place you simply have to visit if you love to travel. It’s a city so beautiful that even Sherman couldn’t bring himself to destroy it in his 1864 March to the Sea, instead gifting it to President Lincoln as a Christmas present.

But Savannah’s one-of-a-kind beauty is only part of the city’s appeal. So Savannah’s CVB turned to Paradise to create a campaign that captured and conveyed the true essence of their destination.

After spending time in the city and conducting extensive research with key stakeholders and long-time visitors, we realized that Savannah could be described in three adjectives:
Authentic. Unexpected. And evocative.

We were surprised to discover that Savannah wasn’t the genteel Southern city people expected it to be. It was elegant but unpredictable. Classy but quirky. Historic but hip.
In other words, it was anything but ordinary. And with that epiphany, the campaign came to life:

This isn’t ordinary. This is Savannah.

Immediately upon presenting the campaign to the Visit Savannah CVB, the team stated they had the foundation for “Savannah 2.0” -- a sweeping new effort aimed at repositioning their destination in the minds of leisure and business travelers. More importantly, after the first year of running the campaign, the destination saw upticks in every key travel and tourism metric:

*Occupany, ADR, and RevPAR increased every month on a year-over-year basis
*Overnight visitation was up by more than 2.5%
*Daytrip visitation was up by more than 3.3%
*Overall Room Tax Revenue was $26.7 million in 2018 versus $25.5 million in 2017
*Average length of stay increased to 2.6 nights in 2018, as opposed to 2.4 in 2017
*Direct visitor spending totaled $3.0 billion in 2018, a 3.1% increase over 2017