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Health Clubs & Leisure Centres Market Report 2007
Key Note Publications Ltd, Oct 2007
The UK health clubs and leisure centres market can be split into two sectors: health clubs (privately owned clubs) and leisure centres (properties usually owned by local authorities). The two sectors are linked by their operation as facilities for keeping fit in a `pure' way. However, leisure centres are included in this Key Note Market Report to demonstrate competition to the health clubs sector. Owing to the different methods of payment (ad hoc payments or subscriptions) and the facilities that both sectors offer, the value of the total market is extremely difficult to estimate. Instead, this report measures the market by total household expenditure on sports and fitness participation.
Private health clubs like David Lloyd Leisure and Virgin Active are moving into a period of consolidation as the market for these clubs, which boomed between 1995 and 2005, becomes more saturated. Mergers and acquisitions are becoming more commonplace, such as Virgin Active's purchase of the Holmes Place group in 2006 and the merger of the David Lloyd and Next Generation clubs in 2007.
Leisure centres, although defined as public (local authority) facilities, are also going through changes to cope with shifting consumer priorities and financial necessities. To compete with the clubs, they are taking on private-sector managements or developing new centres using private money, and the public centre economic model is generally moving closer to that of the private club.
The looming problem for the fitness industry is that consumers are not spending more on sport and fitness. They spent around £3.65bn in 2006, only 5.8% more than in 2002. In addition to intense competition on pricing at clubs, there is always a cheaper alternative for keeping fit (e.g. jogging). As a result, despite their high profile, membership of these facilities remains at a mere 12% of adults (according to the industry's main trade body, the Fitness Industry Association [FIA]).
Underlying the market saturation has been 10 years of a consumer shift away from playing sports and games and towards `pure' fitness activities — working out in the gym, aerobics classes or yoga, swimming or cycling. In fact, already-fit members of the community were well catered for by the end of the 1990s. The new trend, partly inspired by a concerned Department of Health, is towards encouraging a larger majority of the population to get fit and avoid obesity by committing to club or centre membership.
Looking ahead, the image of the gym for intensive `working out' is in danger of seeming like a relic of the 1980s and 1990s, as the majority of consumers — particularly the sophisticated `baby boomers' — start to look for clubs and centres offering more options and a `wellness' alternative. Major clubs are trying out plenty of ideas to attract the unfit (but willing), the families and older members and not just young body builders.
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