NEW OPENINGS
GoGo Liikuntakeskus Hervanta: Opened January 2012 Current membership: 1,200 Target: 2,000 by end of 2012; 2,500–3,000 by end of 2013 Total fl oor size: 2,000sq m, including 500sq m dedicated to group exercise Equipment supplier: Star Trac
GoGo Express Jyväskylä: Opened October 2011 Current membership: 1,500 Target: 2,000 by end of 2012 Total fl oor space: 1,100sq m Investment: €500,000 Equipment suppliers: Life Fitness, Concept2, Jordan
The family-owned fitness brand currently has six sites – three full service GoGo clubs and three GoGo Express budget clubs
Their background as group exercise instructors – combined with a research mission across North America to discover the latest trends – offered them an obvious answer. “We took the decision to invest in group exercise,” says Vähätalo. “We saw the potential in becoming a leader in exercise classes. Although we secured the site of the first club (Tampere Park) at the end of 1988, we spent months researching and looking for ideas, ‘collecting’ the classes we wanted to include before finally opening in January 1990.” All GoGo clubs have large studio
second largest city in Finland – in 1990 and has since developed into a chain with two distinct products. It currently operates three full-service GoGo Liikuntakeskus-branded sites and three GoGo Express budget clubs. The latest openings were a full-service club in Hervanta in January 2012 and a budget club in Jyväskylä in October 2011. Based in Tampere, the company
is wholly-owned and operated by two sisters – Taru Vähätalo and Päivi Aholaita-Mäenpää. Both have spent their entire careers within the fi tness industry, starting out as fi tness instructors before deciding to set up their own company when the eldest, Vähätalo, was just 25.
april 2012 © cybertrek 2012 “We’re defi nitely the largest family-
owned fi tness operator in Finland,” says Vähätalo, who adds that, despite the fragmentation, the local fi tness sector has always been fairly uniform in its offering. She explains: “The fi tness industry
in Finland has been homogeneous for a long time. For years now every club, regardless of location, has had the same opening hours, same equipment, even the same price structure. It’s starting to change with the advent of budget clubs, but that is only a recent development.”
BREAKING THE MOULD
When the sisters set out to open their first club, they were aware of this uniformity and set out to find a USP.
spaces: the biggest group zone at Tampere Park is 300sq m (3,200sq ft). Few could have predicted the emergence of the likes of Zumba, so it seems that the sisters showed remarkable foresight – the huge spaces are perfect for catering for the larger group-based exercises that have taken the world by storm in the past few years. Each GoGo Liikuntakeskus offers 70
hours of group exercise every week – although the new club, which opened in January 2012, at present offers 52 hours as it currently has fewer members than the more established clubs. Vähätalo explains that having the best
selection of classes for members to choose from has been their goal since
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 39
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