ITA Update: Are You Ready For Nashville?

Are You Ready For The ITA Tanning World Expo?

The ITA is very excited about the 2008 ITA World Tanning Expo this Sept. 18-21 in Nashville, Tenn., and you should be, too. This is your opportunity to meet up with old friends and see what’s new in the industry.

Registration is already up 25 percent from last year and there are many new exhibitors. In addition, the expo will feature an educational conference centered around the “Total Salon Makeover” project, a guide to totally transforming a typical tanning business into an operation run on a 21st century indoor-tanning business model.

Rick Berman and his public-relations firm also will be at the show, sharing some great ideas on how we can fight back against the negative press that is scaring people away from the sun and the tanning industry.

Sunshine In The News

Over the past few summer months, we’ve seen a lot of sunshine—and many stories about the sunshine vitamin. Perhaps the most groundbreaking headline was in Time magazine: “Study: Vitamin D Could Save Lives.” It’s no joke. In the July issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers discovered that individuals with high levels of sun-derived vitamin D are two times less likely to die from any cause over eight years than those with low amounts.

Unfortunately, media bias against tanning still is rampant—and a new study about rising rates of melanoma in young women fueled another attack on indoor tanning. While the study had no concrete information as to the cause of the rising rates, that didn’t stop one researcher from musing that indoor tanning might be to blame. This off-handed guess prompted a plethora of headlines regarding the dangers of indoor tanning.

While we have made progress in the battle for public education, stories like this just show the challenge we continue to face.

President’s Message

Although the industry may be in the middle of JASON, this is a very important time of year for the ITA. In addition to hosting the 2008 Tanning World Expo in Nashville, Tenn., the newly elected members of the ITA board of directors will be announced on Sept. 5.

For all ITA members, I hope you will take a minute to cast your vote in the board election. This year there are four slots available in the salon sector, two in the manufacturing sector and one each in the allied and distributor sectors. The nomination period closed on July 23, and we have a dynamic group of industry leaders vying for your support. Go to the members-only section of the ITA Web site to see the nominees.

I also hope you can join us in Nashville this month—so much of what the ITA does for the industry depends on revenue from the show. We have a terrific lineup of exhibitors and the education conference will be better than ever.

See you there!

Dan Humiston, ITA President