Health club and gym owner Stephen Smith was looking for a way to diversify his business and decided to add a tanning salon to his portfolio. In 1995, he found a location that was built out to be a tanning salon but never opened in uptown New Orleans. He signed a lease for this location and named it Electric Beach with a plan to franchise eventually. This was a natural tie-in with his gym business. He had been in the health club industry for many years and understood the value of helping people to look and feel good. In 1996, Smith decided to franchise his tanning business. A name change was in order. However, since funds were tight, he recognized the opportunity to keep some of the existing signage. He could only change one of the words on the sign outside. ?Beach? stayed, and he replaced ?Electric? with ?Planet? to represent the desire to escape to the beach and have an ?otherworldly? and relaxing experience. On April 1, 1996, the Planet Beach franchise program was born. The first Planet Beach franchise ? and the locations that followed ? led to great success and many innovations in the spa industry. Today, there are over 200 franchise units globally. The company is still based in New Orleans and the original Uptown location is still open and thriving after 20 years.