TALKBACK
Kath Hudson • Journalist • Health Club Management EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT . . .
Sweating your assets H
ow much of your club is earning you money? Are the parts that
turn a healthy profi t having to subsidise other areas? With health clubs experiencing increased competition from lean online businesses, it’s time to stop turning a blind eye to those areas of your facilities that aren’t currently pulling their weight. This situation is exacerbated by the
With online businesses and out-of-club
fitness on the rise, how can facility-based operators respond? How can we get maximum value out of our buildings?
So what does all this mean for anyone
“enormous change” going on in the industry, according to Rob Gregory, owner of Lifetime Health. He points to the polarisation of mature markets into low-cost and premium sectors, and the impact of digital solutions, as putting ever more pressure on club-based operators to make the most of their assets.
running facility-based businesses? Will we start to see smaller clubs, with facilities being pared back? Will swimming pools be deemed too expensive to operate? Will cafés be seen as a luxury? With consumer trends showing that people increasingly don’t want to pay for services they don’t actually use, has less become more? Could operators make larger clubs more profi table by sub-letting space
to tenants whose offering complements that of the club, and who could drive additional footfall? Should we fi nd ways of engaging those who are taking fi tness into their own hands: for example, offering specialist training for cyclists and triathletes who haven’t considered a membership?
And how about those empty areas
of the club that are just being used as storerooms or corridors: could a bit of reshaping bring unused spaces to life and turn them into income-generators? Finally, if we are to remain facility-
based, how can we make better use of technology to support that offering, making the club a vital, physical hub of a broader offering that also encompasses out-of-club activities? We ask the experts.
HOW CAN CLUB-BASED OPERATORS MAKE THE MOST OF THEIR ASSETS? EMAIL US:
HEALTHCLUB@LEISUREMEDIA.COM
BAARD WINDINGSTAD Evo Fitness • CEO
“E
vo Fitness clubs are around 420sq m (4,500sq ft), and 85 per cent of the
space brings in yield. Too many clubs think they are centre of the universe and provide too many facilities. We believe working out is just one part of life, and that people generally want to be in and out as quickly as possible, so we design clubs accordingly. Pools and wet areas can be a great selling point, but then people
find they don’t have time to use them and start to see their membership as a waste of money. Our selling point to members is that they don’t pay for expensive facilities they won’t use. Technology is part of this concept and is the heart, the brain
and the soul of what we do. It helps us offer a high quality service but with minimal administration costs, leading to steady membership with a higher yield. For example, we track members’ activity outside the gym and aggregate all their exercise data; they don’t want to leave as they would lose this data. Members can also manage joining and leaving online, not only lowering admin costs but also removing a major barrier to joining in the first place. Some clubs are too big today. I think focused, high quality
services at favourable prices are the future. Bring down the size, maintain quality and focus your business. This is the ‘Ego’ age: customers only want to pay for what they use themselves.
”
DENNIS PELLIKAAN Pellikaan • Co-owner and company director
around 5,000–6,000sq m and like to offer variety. We believe in a total concept aimed at families and are looking to become a one-stop shop – a place people can come for social, sports and medical services (see HCM April, p32). However, we do need to get as high a yield as possible and
“I
have chosen to do this by sub-letting to other businesses. We can then promote these offerings as part of our overall brand. This works for us in two ways: it means we can create a higher yield for the space, and it means we can offer additional services to our members, all run by experts in their field. One partnership that’s working very well for us is with an
after-school childcare provider. This is a very competitive market in Holland, but our partner, Kinderstad, has found that the use of our sports facilities has given them a USP. For us, it means we have been able to double the number of children’s activities on offer, which is of great benefit to our members. Other ways of getting maximum yield from the building is by
cutting down the outgoings. With big buildings, we have high energy costs, but by working with a German consultancy we’ve managed to cut our energy bills by 15–20 per cent.
” 26 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital May 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
believe there’s still scope for large- format facilities. We run clubs of
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