Planet Beach / Las Vegas NV Spas / Nevada Massage
Anyone who thinks tanning salons are passe should think again.
A New Orleans-based company has combined a day spa and a masseuse with its traditional tanning operation and is planning a massive expansion in the Las Vegas Valley.
“Las Vegas is a high-profile town, and people in the type of business we’re in need to have a presence there,” said Stephen Smith, chief executive of Planet Beach.
Planet Beach Salon Contempo Spas already has one location on Valle Verde Drive in Henderson and another on Maryland Parkway near UNLV and is looking to add as many as 40 locations throughout the valley in the next five years.
“We would like to have one for every 30,000 people in a market,” Smith said. “So we think that is a very realistic number.”
The company has more than 360 locations, primarily in the United States, and almost all of its stores are franchises.
Planet Beach started out with a focus on tanning, but company officials recognized the need to diversify when that market went flat. Smith said he noticed that many people wanted the day-spa experience on a regular basis, but either didn’t have the time for it or just could not afford it.
That’s when he realized that if people could get many of those same services in just a few hours for a fraction of the cost of regular spa treatments, he might be onto something.
“People want to look good and feel good, but sometimes, they just don’t have the time,” Smith said. “We saw the tanning business was dying, but the spa business was growing by leaps and bounds.”
He decided the best way to serve the market was to keep providing tanning services, but to do it as a complement to a more complete spa regimen.
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the Planet Beach concept is that all of the services are performed without the touch of a human hand.
At Planet Beach, machines do all of the work.
The company offers several tanning options, with or without UV, several types of massages and even a facial, and all are fully automated.
The company offers a hydration station, which is a vitamin and mineral steam bath that softens and hydrates the skin and opens the pores, and an aqua massage machine.
Customers can get just about any type of massage they could get at a traditional spa, including the deep tissue or fingertip variety.
The electronic “arm” on the massage machine achieves a similar effect to a human arm, but with a consistent, mechanical precision.
“There are also some people who want a massage but just don’t like to be touched,” Kevin Sarna, a local franchisee, said.
Although the massage and day spa treatments, including the luminous facial, employ cutting-edge technology, the more traditional services, such as the tanning methods, have also been greatly improved, Sarna says.
The company model is based on a membership that can cost anywhere between $100 and $135 per month. The membership cost includes use of all equipment and the only limitations are those based on health concerns.
Although tanning was largely unrestricted when the business was in its infancy, new information and improved equipment have combined to provide a safer, more consistent tanning experience. The days when people could spend hours in substandard equipment cooking their skin are long gone.
Problems such as streaking or equipment that gives a tan that doesn’t look natural have also been largely eliminated, Sarna said.
The company limits the number of times and duration of visits for its tanning customers and uses a skin-type analysis to help determine an exposure schedule.
The questionnaire touches on eye and hair color, the color of a person’s unradiated skin and how a person’s skin reacts to the sun.
Sarna and Lloyd Zellner are the guys who are bringing the Planet Beach concept to Las Vegas. Both are franchisees, and Zellner also serves as the company’s Las Vegas representative.
“As we expand, it should help a lot with training and site selection to have a company representative with experience in the market,” Zellner said.
Unlike many companies, Planet Beach allows multiple franchisees within a market, but Smith said it prefers to sell at least a “five-pack” (five stores to one owner)within a region to a single franchisee.
Franchise owners usually prefer to have an exclusive territory to have control of the brand.
Since customers identify with the company name and not the franchisee, a poorly run store can have a negative effect on an entire region.
Zellner said, however, that because the concept is pretty much turnkey, with a consistent design and equipment model, he is not concerned about sharing the market.
The company also has an extensive training and follow-up program and the equipment does most of the work, so the customer experience is a little easier to control than some other businesses.
The company is actively seeking franchisees and offers the five-pack franchise for $65,000. Individual franchises are also available for $30,000, providing even more incentive for interested buyers to purchase multiple units.
All costs can vary depending on location and construction costs. Locally, Zellner says, it can range between $220,000 on the low end to more than $500,000 depending on where the store is.
There is a 6 percent royalty fee and an additional 1 percent national marketing fee.
Zellner and Sarna said they also do additional local marketing to target specific customer bases.
The Maryland Parkway store, for example, is near UNLV and has developed a strong customer base among students, so there is an emphasis on media that focus on that market.
The company provides more than just spa and tanning services. There is also a complete line of skin-care products, which Zellner said account for about 25 percent of the company’s business.
As the company continues to add products and services, its customer base has expanded. When Planet Beach was primarily a tanning business, its customers were primarily younger women. With the array of services the company now provides, Zellner says, the business has crossed virtually all age, racial and gender lines.
“Men are a big growth market for us,” Zellner said.
The company also offers Internet services and continues to expand that part of the business to include a more complete package of services, such as an online dietician, for its customers.
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Planet Beach / Las Vegas NV Spas / Nevada Massage
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