RESEARCH ROUND-UP
at a rate of 55 per thousand members per month. That’s a loss of an additional 240 members a year that need replacing. When these fi gures are scaled up to a
national level, the size of the problem really becomes clear. In the 2012 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report, produced by The Leisure Database Company, there were 7,601,114 health club members in the UK. If you extract the 2012 retention fi gures from The National Retention Report, this would equate to a loss of 3,952,579 members. Many of these will, of course, have
left one gym to join another – it’s not currently possible to track that change. However, even acknowledging this, a fi gure of 3,952,579 annual lapsers is still unacceptably high. Meanwhile, if we look at how long
members stay, we can see a big difference between the best and worst performers. Median length of membership is currently just 12.3 months. However, the worst performing clubs only manage to hold on to members for six months, whereas the best performing clubs keep them for an additional 23.5 months. Based on a club of 1,000 members, each paying £35
METHODOLOGY
Published in 2013, The National Retention Report (The White Report) – produced by Dr Paul Bedford – offers insights into the retention and attrition rates of the UK health and fi tness market over a four- year period (1 Jan 09 to 31 Dec 12). Data was sourced from 100 sites, with
a breakdown – the proportion of chains, independents, trusts, local authority sites and privately managed public facilities – that mirrors the wider UK market. Within these 100 sites, 38 different club operators were represented, with
66 Health Club Handbook 2014
a total of 729,389 individual member records supplied. After the data was cleaned for irregularities, 342,759 member records remained for analysis. The measurement methodology
from the previous reports (2002 and 2008) was once again used to provide continuity and allow some comparison, offering a defi nitive way of measuring retention and attrition, as well as enabling participating clubs to compare their own performance against industry benchmarks.
66 per cent of over-55s maintain membership for a year
a month, that equates to a difference in income of £595,000 between the best and worst performers.
Homogenous offering If we review the demographics of the members in The National Retention Report
sample using MOSAIC profi ling – used to understand characteristics of households and the individuals living there – it shows the industry is dominated by the middle classes, failing to attract the highest or lowest income groups. Rural areas and older people are also under-represented. This is true across all sectors. Indeed,
while previous reports have shown that MOSAIC types differ by public and private sector, the new report suggests this is no longer the case, with types that were previously only seen in more expensive private sector clubs now being found equally in public sector facilities. So why is this? Public sector operators
have upped their game in recent years, while the private sector has experienced challenging times, leading to more parity of offering. We’re seeing similar marketing strategies targeting the same types of members, who are being sold similar types of contracts with similar time periods, which provide access to
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