SIBEC REVIEW
Industry Insights
November 2013 saw SIBEC deliver its most successful event in its 17-year history, selling out well ahead of schedule and hosting a record number of operators and suppliers. Katie Lewis reports
MEET THE PANEL
Franck Gueguen: President, International Fitness Holdings
(Club Med Gym & Silhouette)
Kevin Yates: Head of fitness, marketing & communications, Leisure Connection / 1Life
Natalie Cornish (née Mumford): Fitness & wellbeing director, Nuffield Health
Tim Foster: Central operations director, Virgin Active
The panel debate was chaired by ukactive’s David Stalker (second from right)
T Q
aking place at the Don Carlos Leisure Resort and Spa in Marbella, Spain, SIBEC Europe kicked off with a panel debate
featuring four of the industry’s most influential operators and chaired by David Stalker, CEO of ukactive and board member of EHFA and CIMSPA. We round up some of the discussions.
Are we promoting the right messages to encourage more
people to be physically active? Frank Gueguen In France and Switzerland, around 20–25 per cent of people join facilities to lose weight; 75 per cent join to improve their general health. We’re trying to appeal to a very broad range of motivations and needs. As a result, we’re not focused on the short-term goal – selling the weight-loss dream – but instead focus our marketing on the benefits of physical and mental wellbeing. I believe this is the right approach. Kevin Yates At the start of the New Year, there will be the usual bun fight for new members. Many chains will attempt to attract people with incredible money-saving promotions. This puts pressure on others to do the same and it’s not the right approach for long-term sustainability.
74 When Dove launched its campaign
using real women to promote its product range, its market share grew from 1 per cent to 6 per cent. I’d like to see the fi tness sector become more professional in its marketing, thinking more long-term than quick fi x. I’d also like to see operators working
collaboratively with ukactive to fund a central marketing campaign to promote the benefi ts of physical activity. Increasing general awareness will benefi t operators. Natalie Cornish I agree with Kevin. The majority of people still make a choice about where to work out based on location and ease of access, so pooling resources to fund a central campaign makes perfect sense. At Nuffi eld, the big challenge we face
is whether to run campaigns based on our core values of wellness and health or simply jump on the bandwagon and run price-led marketing campaigns. Tim Foster New member motivations to join haven’t changed much over the years: most still join to lose weight, get fit, tone up and generally improve their health. We’ll tap into these motivations while playing to our strengths – we call it ‘20 per cent more for 20 per cent less’, by which we mean offering exceptional value for money.
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital David Stalker asked the operators in the
room whether they would potentially pool resources to fund a central campaign for the sector and the general consensus was ‘yes’.
Q
Functional training – the future or just a fad?
Kevin Yates Facilities we build today will be serving communities for generations to come. Instead of churning out the same old formula such as traditional sports halls, we need to consider what will motivate the next generation to be more physically active than us. Alliance Leisure is doing some good work in this area, designing skate parks, high ropes courses and climbing facilities that appeal to the motivations of the younger generations. The introduction of CrossFit and
concepts like HIIT all help to offer a more diverse range of activities. They won’t appeal to everyone, but it’s important that we continue to question the traditional offering. Tim Foster Currently, functional training and extreme conditioning are receiving perhaps a disproportionate amount of media attention. The reality is that brands like CrossFit and concepts like HIIT are still quite niche. We need to
January 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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