interview:swimming Home Sengs


In your opinion, what are the current consumer trends in the swimming market? What sorts of innovations are consumers looking for? Pool swimming has been in decline for several years and there are a number of theories as to why this happening: pool swimming is perceived as boring, it’s expensive, it hasn’t kept up with technological progress, it’s not social (you can’t take selfies in swimming pools) and there’s increasing competition from other activities. Sport England and the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) have a number of initiatives to arrest the decline and keep swimming as the country’s most popular participation sport. In my view, open water swimming offers a lot of things that consumers are looking for now: adventure, challenge, excitement and the possibility of sharing what you’re doing on social media.


What would you consider the main challenges facing independent sports retailers today? Talking specifically about swimming, swimmers are a difficult market to reach. While there are more than two million people who swim regularly, they do so in pools, lakes and rivers all around the country so targeted marking is difficult unless you have the scale to be in all of these places. On the other hand, social media and dedicated swimming publishers both offer opportunities to connect with swimmers that didn’t exist a few years ago. For open water swimmers there’s scope for offering personalised services such as wetsuit fitting and sharing local knowledge on the best places to swim.


How do you see the future of open water swimming progressing in the UK? I hope it continues to grow. Pool swimmers still far outnumber open water swimmers but anyone who can swim is a potential open water swimmer. Part of our mission is to show that open water is not as cold, dirty and dangerous as many people believe. Open water swimming is a fun, healthy and social way to connect with nature and to feel good about yourself. Through what we and groups such as the Outdoor Swimming Society are doing, that message is getting out there. We need better access to water and more places where people can swim safely, especially on inland waters. In terms of trends, increasing numbers of people are looking for challenges and destination swims; for example, point-to-point swims in interesting locations rather than circuits in a gravel pit lake. However, those gravel pit lakes will remain a great entry point to the sport as they tend to be accessible and shallow enough to warm up quickly in summer. They also make great training destinations. We expect to see increasing numbers of people using them as an alternative or addition to swimming pools, especially in summer. We also think increasing numbers of people will continue to swim outside in winter and take holidays where the principal activity is swimming. All of this should drive demand for coaching services, structured training within swimming club environments and supporting kit and equipment.


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