Blue Sky Luxury Travels requires to the skies with private jet vacation | Organization

From grocery deliveries to a world wide luxury journey firm, Shanna Dickerson has certainly appear a extensive way with her company Blue Skies Luxurious Travels. Reserving personal villas, private islands and yacht charters, Dickerson now takes to the skies to provide luxury air vacation via a new partnership with Magellan Jets.

Initially from Charlotte, N.C., Dickerson graduated from UNC Wilmington in 2001 with a degree in communication. Performing for Crystal clear Channel Entertainment in concert, competition and company event promotion and production, she helped make live shows by names these types of as Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Kenny Chesney, Jay Z, The Law enforcement, Pearl Jam, Jimmy Buffett, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Speculate, Kayne West, Foo Fighters, Metallica and Tim McGraw. In 2004, at the age of 25, she turned the tour supervisor for the famous Steve Winwood.

Dickerson experienced constantly dreamed of moving to the Virgin Islands, where her family frequently vacationed as she was increasing up. Just after 10 decades in the music business, Dickerson had a selection to make. She could go immediately after her desire now and figure out her perform circumstance, or she could remain in the audio business and company The usa and shift down to the islands in 40 a long time to retire.

In 2010, noticing Kenny Chesney had a residence on St. John, she arrived at out to contacts in his management workforce to see if he had any referrals she could use to go down and start off a enterprise.

The first get in touch with she was presented was Jack Andrews, a developer in Peter Bay. Andrews made available her a stay-in home management place at the Peter Bay Seaside Dwelling, so she downsized to two suitcases, marketed anything and moved to St. John.

At Peter Bay Beach front House, which was leasing for $20,000 for the week, Dickerson was dealing with exceptionally affluent tourists, receiving their groceries, setting up itineraries, hiring cooks and organizing activities. She made the decision to get started her own enterprise offering groceries to villas on St. John for arriving clients.

The company boomed simply because of a overlooked lime. Just one working day, she forgot the lime on a purchasing record for a client and went all the way back again to the shop to get a person and provide it.

The additional energy was found by a huge luxurious vacation villa firm, who provided her the provisioning business for 400 villas. She made a offer with Starfish Sector and received her liquor license to acquire wholesale and provide retail out of her auto.

“I was in all of these villas and I was seeing them firsthand, and I realized that having a proportion for reserving a villa for $20,000 a 7 days and the concierge enterprise is really the way to go,” Dickerson mentioned. “So that is how I obtained began. I started to balloon out with the charters and private islands and now private jets. Now Blue Sky is a international multimillion dollar organization.” It was not all easy sailing for Dickerson. Business enterprise came to an abrupt halt after hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. The key share of her business enterprise was on St. John and in the BVI, which have been badly damaged from the storms. She had no earnings for a few months, and expended that time earning contacts on other islands. She made the decision to go all in and withdraw her whole 401K to try out and mature the business enterprise.

“I swear it bought down to the pretty very last cent in advance of points started to just take off yet again for me,” she mentioned. “I used that income to go to each island that was still standing. It manufactured sense for all my significant-stop clientele. Turks and Caicos, Belize, Antigua St. Lucia, Anguilla, St. Kitts, Nevis, you name it, I was on a flight hoping to develop the small business as swift as doable.”

With additional islands in her portfolio, Blue Sky was now equipped to supply other possibilities in the Caribbean for her shoppers even though the Virgin Islands rebuilt.

At the very same time, the USVI and Puerto Rico were awarded $6 million from FEMA in emergency resources, and countless numbers of building workers and supervisors ended up coming to the islands on the lookout for momentary housing since most main accommodations ended up ruined. Dickerson fashioned one more enterprise, Blue Sky World Logistics, performing with FEMA, the Coastline Guard and 11 various development providers to uncover housing for their workforce.

Nearly three many years afterwards, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, again restricting vacation, but in the end, that eventually turned to Dickerson’s benefit. Reserving non-public villas, non-public yacht charters and personal islands that are safer and much more isolated from the pandemic Blue Sky was now established up for that form of traveler. As numerous providers decided to reduce back on advertising and marketing, Dickerson did the reverse. She doubled her advertising and marketing price range, building absolutely sure Blue Sky was a frequent existence on Fb, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. When travel resumed, the gamble paid out off, Dickerson mentioned, and the vacation enterprise has in fact developed by 1,100 per cent.

“I feel it is critical for corporations and entrepreneurs to be ready to pivot,” she explained. “One of the most important issues I learned is just to really believe in my instinct. I did not see this vision in 2010. You have to maintain your eyes open up and pay out consideration, because what you consider is your small business could do a total 180 in a few of years.”

New for Blue Sky in 2021 is the addition of a partnership with Magellan Jets to give personal air journey to and from the luxurious accommodations Blue Sky presents.

“I like their security scores. That is vastly important to me,” stated Dickerson. “Their staff is unbelievable and their three house owners are wonderful. Every little thing fell into position with this enterprise, and it arrived at the ideal time since with COVID-19, extra of my purchasers are fascinated in personal air vacation. So again, COVID-19 has been yet another pivot that has expanded my business.”

For much more data, visit www.blueskyluxurytravels.com.