INTERVIEW
“We wanted to
create what we call our ‘3Cs’ approach – a philosophy of cure, care and control – by fully
integrating medical expertise into our club offering”
people to our clubs who never would have joined or visited before.” Originally launched in 2010 and
currently available at three sites, both for members and non-members, the medical offering is designed to broaden the health club model to address what Pellikaan sees as the two key trends in society: an ageing population, and the growing issue of obesity. “We already had in-house
physiotherapists, but essentially they just rented a room – there wasn’t any real connection between our product and their expertise or facilities. We wanted to create what we call our ‘3Cs’ approach – a philosophy of cure, care and control – by fully integrating medical expertise into the offering at our clubs. “Our medical centre model comprises
on average six or eight consultation rooms rented out to physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, oncologists, podiatrists and so on. We offer vitality checks (V-Checks – see HCM Oct 10, p29), obesity programmes, special physiotherapy for cyclists. We even go into local companies to offer fi tness advice and occupational health checks.
There are six Pellikaan clubs, with a seventh to follow after a rebrand
“It’s been a deliberate decision that
all our medical professionals are local people – we don’t have agreements at a national level to cover all our clubs. We want people who are proactive within our clubs, marketing their services to our members. But we also want people who have strong streams of business locally – relationships with nearby hockey clubs, tennis clubs and so on – as this brings new prospects into our facilities.” Pellikaan continues: “The biggest
challenge, of course, is to create a seamless connection between the fi tness and medical elements of our offering. We’re trying to treat the medical health team in the same way as we do our reception, sales or F&B teams, meeting on a monthly basis so everyone’s fully briefed on what everyone else is doing. “But we also work together on
developing programmes that involve everyone in the club, and that everyone feels ownership of. We don’t leave it to the medical professionals to introduce their own, standalone initiatives – we take the lead to ensure the bigger commercial picture is taken into account. Where do our staff come in? What information are we sharing with our fi tness team when a member has a V-Check, for example, to help them put together a good programme for that member? “It’s about creating and constantly
refi ning the communication channels between medical and fi tness, as well as evolving training ideas together as a team.”
The clubs offer a wide range of facilities – but service remains the USP
34 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
The medical centre concept will
now be rolled out to the other clubs – two this year and the sixth in 2014 – once, explains Pellikaan, the right medical professionals have been found. “That’s not easy, because the market in Holland has changed a lot,” he explains. “The government is trying to cut healthcare costs, and of course insurance companies still want to make their margins, which means consumers are having to pick up more of the costs themselves. Physiotherapists, nutritionists and so on are reporting a drop in demand of around 15–20 per cent as a direct result of this. They’re therefore more hesitant about committing to paying rent to us. Once our centres get up and running they go very well, and we get lots of interest from local professionals. But fi nding the right people in the fi rst place takes time.” The effort is worthwhile though, as
Pellikaan explains: “The medical offering is very important for our brand as a whole. As I explained before, we need to differentiate our offering and add value to our facilities and product, and a medical health clinic is a great way of doing that. It generates a lot of publicity and makes the club more professional in the eyes of the consumer.”
A rental model Although the medical centres are performing well, the income from renting out the space remains small when compared with membership revenues. However, says Pellikaan: “We have big clubs and we weren’t effectively using all of the space, so the rental model makes perfect sense.” There’s also an additional bonus for the clubs’ bottom line: “With the
April 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
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