If you look back four years, the consensus across the health club industry was that it was time for a change – things had got a little boring. Operators were set in their ways and analysts talked about the need to break the mould, create new business models and challenge the status quo, but nothing changed in spite of this recognition.
Fast forward to 2011 and things couldn’t be more different - it’s taken the biggest financial shake-up in our lifetime, but there are signs the industry’s starting to innovate. The pace of change is picking up too, with a slew of new announcements giving indications of how things are likely to shape up as the year unfolds.
The first trend seems to be towards diversification into new sectors, as operators in public and private sectors look for growth by attacking new markets. Leisure Connection, for example – originally a contract leisure management company – has announced plans to move into hotel gym management and will run the health and fitness facilities for Park Inn Hotels. Meanwhile, in the trusts market, Kirklees Active Leisure has announced it will launch into the low-cost gym sector by opening two budget clubs in Yorkshire this year.
Local authorities are following GLL and Pendle’s lead and launching spas – the latest being a Schletterer-designed, Décleor day spa at St Neots leisure centre in Cambridgeshire and a new spa at Hyndburn Leisure Trust’s Mercer Hall Leisure Centre.
If you’d asked a local government leisure professional who Décleor were a couple of years ago, they wouldn’t have had a clue, whereas now it seems spas are the new focus for both refurbished and new-build local authority and trust-managed facilities.
Other recently-announced initiatives include DC Leisure’s tie up with Magnus Scheving’s LazyTown TV brand to launch children’s LazyTown Sports Clubs as part of DC’s programme to boost children’s fitness at its centres and .
Franchising looks set to be big news this year, especially in the budget sector, where énergie will push forward following its aquisition of nuyuu. Other entrants include truGym which has announced it plans to grow through the franchise model and New Evolution Ventures’ Crunch franchise, which is planning a global franchise roll-out and looks likely to come to the UK at some point. In a related deal, Topnotch Health Clubs has just announced an agreement which will enable it to use the Fitness4Less name to roll out budget health clubs, with ambitious growth plans in 2011.
Medical fitness looks set to be big this year, with more links to physiotherpy and specialist health services being announced. This will be backed up by the FIA’s new Joint Consultative Forum which brings the FIA together with a number of royal medical colleges and faculties with the aim of increasing the number of exercise referrals and drawing up new standards.
Add to this the launch of easyGym, the massive growth of social media and the impact this will have on the industry and the likelihood of the UK getting its first Madonna Hard Candy health club and 2011 is already shaping up to be a pretty interesting year.
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