Linking fitness with the healthcare sector will never happen. People are living in a dream world


“I realise going into spa is quite


ambitious but – and I may have to eat my words – I believe it will be less hard than running a medical centre.”


sector analysis And yet, in spite of The Third Space’s success in running a medical offering, Dunmore dismisses the fitness industry’s potential to link in more closely with the healthcare sector.


“It’s never going to happen,” he says. “People are living in a dream world. Getting practitioners to get to the point where they’re confi dent enough to refer to another practitioner requires them to know each other quite well. They just won’t do it. “In any case, I don’t think there’s


anything wrong with just saying we’re the health and fi tness sector. What’s wrong with being really good at helping people get fi tter? It’s already a great industry and it has to be the way of the future, because more people are seeing the benefi ts of exercise across all ages. Why do we have to start using long words to describe what we offer?” Saying all that, does Dunmore even see The Third Space as part of the


november/december 2010 © cybertrek 2010


health and fi tness industry? “Well, of course we’re part of that sector – the leisure industry – but do I think we’re part of the health and fi tness industry as provided by clubs across the UK? No. Other operators would look at us and tell us we run a very bad business: far too many employees, towels twice as large as they need to be and so on. They’d probably take all that out with a view to making more cash. I believe churn would go up as a result. “Now they might be right, but all I


would say is that I have a solid business that’s grown even in the tough conditions of the last fi nancial year. We were recently voted ‘London’s Best Health & Fitness Facility 2010’ at the London Lifestyle Awards and we have very, very high levels of retention, even in the transient marketplace of Soho. If we can now replicate that in two or three other places, then I think it proves the strength of our brand and our business model. “Most clubs are run as cash cows.


Repairs and maintenance expenditure is minimal and there’s a low-level approach to customer service. But we’re a retail business, and as they say ‘retail is detail’. If you focus on the minutiae and get


those right every single day, and if you invest, you’ll have a fantastic product. But the industry doesn’t always do that. “One of the other things that


surprises me about the industry is that it’s unbelievably arrogant about members. The prevalent attitude seems to be that, once someone signs up, that’s it – they’re in and you can move onto the next kill. But you just can’t build a business on that. “The professionalisation of the


industry is also aeons away, with no really good training programmes. The handling of employees and the rates of appreciation or pay that they receive are also astonishingly low given the skills of some of those in the industry – the personal trainers out there with sports science degrees and a wealth of knowledge, for example. “On the plus side, I think the


industry as a whole is getting better at communicating the value of regular exercise, and it’s trying to become a customer service industry, but that’s still a long way away.”


healthclub@leisuremedia.com kate cracknell


Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 31


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