July: Health Club Management

World of Fitness

In the July Issue of Health Club Management, the IHRSA 2017 Global Report findings were published including statistics from the LeisureDB 2017 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report...

"In the UK, based on research by LeisureDB, 9.7 million people belong to a private corporate health club, up from 9.3 million a year ago. Approximately 6,728 facilities in the UK generate a collective US$6.1 billion in industry revenue. Germany attracts more than 10 million members to 8,600 facilities and generates US$5.6 billion in revenue."

Original Source: Health Club Management

** The 2017 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report can be downloaded via the link **

June: Health Club Management

A golden age for the health club industry

The latest numbers from The Leisure Database Company show the market is growing strongly and anticipating a golden age between now and 2020. David Minton reports...

The number of gyms and members, the market value of the sector and penetration rates for memberships are the key metrics detailed in the 2017 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report published by LeisureDB and they all show the UK fitness industry to be in rude health.

There are now over 9.7m fitness members (an increase of 5.1 per cent from 2016), which has boosted the penetration rate to an all-time high of 14.9 per cent, compared to 14.3 per cent 12 months ago. The market value has continued to grow and is now estimated to be £4.7bn, a 6.3 per cent increase. Now, in the UK, 1 in every 7 people are members of a gym – the most ever.

Budget success
The low-cost market has continued to be the main driving force of the industry. With over 500 sites, they now account for 15 per cent of the market value and an impressive 35 per cent of membership across the private sector.

Some trusts, management contractors and in-house operators across the public sector are also operating low-cost gyms and many of the low-cost brands have discovered that the strength of the market in some areas enables them to raise and move into the mid-market.

Fitness brands, with transparency of pricing and offering, are continuing to grow and by utilising good social media practices and constantly listening and responding to their customers, they are meeting and exceeding their needs.

Investment
However, they are not alone in pushing the boundaries and experimenting with innovation. Both the private mid-market operators and many public sector sites are also investing and expanding their market. Franchise brands have also had their best year to date and some top end brands are quoted as having more members now than ever before.

For the first time in five years, the public sector saw a small decline in membership numbers after closing more sites than it opened for the second year running. With almost 50 per cent of public sites still to go out to tender, the trusts and contract management companies have an opportunity to turn this decline back to growth in 2018 and beyond.

The trend data shows how the industry has grown over the last five years and in 2017 the industry now offers the widest possible choice of fitness options. New technology and innovation feeds into the existing industry at all levels and could in-part be responsible for helping expand the market.

Diversification
Location search, live timetables and deeper booking integration will be commonplace very shortly through search engines, social media platforms and apps. Online class bookings, currently available across 41 per cent of the private sector and 61 per cent of the public, shows good levels of adoption, even if some of the interfaces are still clunky to use for the more tech-savvy consumers.

Meanwhile new fitness experiences, via travel companies, community groups and highly curated events, are often reliant on the consumer having higher levels of fitness to take part.

Boutiques and the growing fitness-for-free sector are all anecdotally helping expand the market, and opportunities at activewear shops, park gyms and meet-ups via apps all seem to be feeding into the core fitness industry.

The consumer brings greater expectation for a better and more connected experience, and despite the current political and fiscal uncertainties, the report remains very positive about the future. It may be a little premature to call the period between 2017 and 2020 the “golden age of fitness” but the industry is likely to reach some key milestones in 2018, including the number of fitness sites surpassing 7,000 for the first time, total membership exceeding 10m, market value totalling £5bn and the penetration rate easily surpassing 15 per cent of the total population. Obviously, the devil is in the detail and the detail is exactly what’s is in this report.

Details from www.leisuredb.com/publications

Original HCM article here. 

We've been quoted!

Following the release of the 2017 State of the UK Fitness Industry report we're pleased to announce our stats have been quoted across the media!

The Guardian - "The budget gym boom: how low-cost clubs are driving up membership"

The Times - "It's Life, Gym"

The Times - "Budget gyms are flexing their muscles"

Leisure Opportunities/Health Club Management - "Private sector drives UK fitness industry growth"

Fitness News Europe - "Public sector dip in buoyant UK market"

IHRSA - Health Club Management

After his attendance at #IHRSA2017, David was quoted in Health Club Management, Issue May 2017. 

“Consumers are in control – brands need to stop interrupting with bad technology and trying to sell unwanted products or services and instead start having smart conversations and start listening,”

Original content can be found via this link. 

One Step Ahead

William Shakespeare famously said: “We know what we are, but know not what we may be”. Eloquently spoken personal trainers often recite this quote as their opening line – and I could make the same observation when asked, time and time again: “How big can the fitness industry grow?”

Like all business, timing is everything and this year we have seen more innovation than ever before. This has continued to drive the growth in the industry for the fourth year in a row; as detailed in the State of the Fitness Industry Report 2016 published by The Leisure Database Company. Highlights from the last year, include, the joint public and private penetration rate rising from 13.7% to 14.3%, the total number of fitness sites growing from 6,312 to 6,435 and the number of members jumping from 8.8m to 9.2m, the first time the industry has over 9m members. All of these contributing to the overall market value climbing from £4.3bn to £4.4bn in 2016.

Although, the disruptive business models of the so called ‘low cost’ brands are primarily responsible for driving the growth, it is not having an adverse effect on the overall value of the industry. Many brands have found the strength of the market allows them to charge above the publicity grabbing low-cost teens. These low cost brands are now responsible for around one third of all private fitness memberships. Whilst, the average monthly membership price has firmed from £18.23 in 2015 to £18.77 in 2016, reflecting the strength in latent demand for fitness across these sites. These first movers, which benefit from scale and new innovative in-house systems, which enable hour to hour and day to day management of the business, has allowed this sector to grow to over 450 sites with around 2m members in a very short period of time. The low cost sector saw a huge 41% increase in the number of clubs in the last twelve months and the clubs now have an average membership of 4,118. Immediate data science and enterprise security software are key to further growth.

In the six months since the publication of the 2016 Report, some major changes have taken place which are worth mentioning. Although Pure Gym, who have already opened another 17 clubs, remain at the top of the fitness operator leader board by number of sites (169), there’s a new number two. Following a buying spree, which included mostly Virgin Active clubs, Nuffield Fitness and Wellbeing Gyms have jumped from 5th to 2nd place with 112 clubs. They have gained 35 clubs and over 120,000 new members. Both, The Gym and David Lloyd Leisure, are in joint 4th spot; both have 82 sites and similar membership numbers. The franchise sector is having its best year so far; Anytime Fitness have opened 22 new clubs, taking their total to 91, Energie Fitness and their low cost brand Fit4Less have jumped to seventh place with 76 clubs and Snap Fitness has added 6 clubs to take them to 14.

Moving onto the public sector, there are 2,735 fitness sites, that collectively have over 3.3m fitness members and an estimated similar number on pay as you go. 41% are now managed by a trust.

For the third year running, the top three public operators by number of gyms remain with GLL, SLM and PfP. Freedom Leisure and Fusion are the only operators to move up the top 10 rankings in the last year, Fusion jumped to 4th and Freedom to 6th position.

For only the second time in 6 years, the number of closures across the public sector this year were higher than the number of openings. With 49 new gyms opening and 65 closing there was a net loss of 16 fitness sites. However, these sites were characterised as smaller gyms (24% less than the average), with fewer members, (27% less than average) and fewer facilities. So without investment they were never realistically going to compete.

In the past six months, we have also experienced the Pokemon Go fever, which overnight eclipsed social media platforms. The game achieved a higher number of daily users and longer time periods spent in the app than on WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Whilst I’m sure it didn’t set out to make more people more active, in just a few weeks it did. Well it was fun while it lasted and the latest data shows the craze is waning, but there are lessons for the fitness industry, people will take part in more activity if it’s fun, engaging and different, rather than dreary and repetitive. Time to think outside the box!

It’s a fast changing world and social media remains a difficult area for fitness brands to achieve both followers and then quality engagement. Amongst the top 20 private brands, Facebook is the most popular platform, with the number of ‘likes’ at just over 1m. Twitter is in second place with just over 275,000 followers across the top brands. The highly engaging Instagram has only 68,000 followers and still only half of the top twenty brands have a presence, shame on you. Checkout who’s doing well with some great screen shot examples in the Social Media Fitness Index Q3 Report.

It’s no coincidence, that the top four active wear brands, Nike+ Running, Under Armour Record, Adidas Train & Run, and Puma’s Pumatrac are all building fitness communities through activity tracking. Fitness industry brands could grow as quickly if they took advantage of the opportunities to connect with their consumers through repeat check-ins for classes, challenges, guest passes and push notifications. One day, my personalised push notification will come.

David Minton - Health Club Management Handbook 2017, page 72. 

Friend or Foe?

Are activity trackers a help or a hindrance when it comes to weight loss? 

David Minton, Director of LeisureDB, featured in the January 2017 issue of Health Club Management discussing activity trackers and wearable technology. 

"It's good that wearable technology and physical activity trackers are being debated, but we need to put them into context - we're only at the start of the journey of their functionality. We're at the stage where we can only use tracking information as an indication and not take it too seriously. If companies like Nike and Microsoft have withdrawn their devices, it shows we're at a very early stage. 

There's so much confusion over healthy eating and weight management. Monitoring activity is only part of the answer and people need to be careful about setting their calorific intake based on the information from a tracker: most people tend to over-estimate their physical activity levels and under-estimate what they eat. 

Going forward, to make trackers more effective, there needs to be more use of artificial intelligence. There also needs to be more gamification. This needs to be fun - it shouldn't be boring or dreary."

Find the original article via Health Club Management. 

Health & fitness industry to see 300% growth!

Via Health Club Management...

Byran O'Rourke believes the health and fitness industry is set for explosive growth over the next decade and could grow up to 300%. 

Here are David Minton's thoughts on the industry's potential...

It's currently the most exciting time to be in the fitness industry in terms of innovation, growth and potential. Three hundred per cent growth is definitely possible: the industry needs to think BIG. Globally we should be aiming for half a billion members. 

Penetration rates are very low in the global fitness industry at present - still in the low single figures in lots of countries - so the potential is enormous, especially in Asia and the developing world. However, there's still huge potential for the market in the UK too, which has grown by two million members since 2007 to achieve 14.3 per cent population penetration. 

Two factors will drive growth: education and experience. Operators need to focus on improving both. Following the lead of the hotel industry, they need to keep investing in the product and innovating. 

They also need to get better at using data to connect with current and potential members. Although we're definitely seeing improvements, historically the industry has been poor at finding out how often members come, what they do and what they spend. 

Change will happen across all ages and demographics. However, certainly in the UK I don't see a huge growth coming from the healthcare sector at the moment because, to engage with the NHS, the industry will need to become far more professional, start talking the same language and take part in clinical trials. 

Nuffield Health acquires 35 Virgin Active sites...

It was announced via Health Club Management yesterday that Nuffield Health have acquired 35 Virgin Active sites and here are David Minton's thoughts....

"Nuffield, as one of the largest trusts in the country, are the only brand perfectly placed to link wellness, hospitals, corporate and fitness sites. It's great to see them growing their estate via former Cannons, Esporta and Virgin Active sites". 

Virgin Active have announced they will remain a significant player in the UK despite selling the clubs.