A N A LY S I S
Shaping up Although the diversity of COVID-19 responses around the world makes comparisons a challenge, as gyms open up, it’s possible to identify patterns of member behaviour, as Paul Bedford explains
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eactions to the pandemic vary widely by nation, from Taiwan, with its previous experience of SARS and robust track and trace system, to Sweden, which has largely remained open throughout. This means it’s challenging to find a global benchmark for the performance of health clubs following reopening. However, by tracking gym, health club and studio performance during the first 12 weeks following a reopening, we’ve been able to observe a surge in attendances from 58 per cent to 81 per cent during the first seven weeks of trading, as existing members return and new people join. When tracking the data of our clients, we’re seeing a spike in visits in the first one to five days, with many members visiting 3-4 times per week, even if that was not their visit frequency pattern before the lockdown. After 10 days, visit patterns begin to revert to pre-pandemic levels. This is similar to data presented recently by Egym for the German market. It’s not possible to provide a single member return percentage globally, because health clubs around the world are operating in widely differing conditions and under different restrictions, but by tracking visit frequency data for the operators in our data set, we find that most have seen an average of 70 per cent of customers recording at least one visit in the first 10 days after a reopening. In contrast, a few public sector operators in the UK have seen this figure as low as 27 per cent – likely for a variety of reasons, such as facilities being used as vaccination centres, which could be off-putting for some users, providers being unable to re-open all services, and limitations on class numbers.
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Issue 6 2021 ©Cybertrek 2021
Where they’re allowed to operate group exercise classes, our clients are reporting they’re running at capacity, but that can be anything as low as 25 per cent of prepandemic numbers due to social distancing restrictions. David Connell, director of sport at the University of Hertfordshire Sports Village, UK, gives an example, saying: “Where we’re allowed to operate group exercise classes we’re operating at capacity, but we’re finding this is around 40 per cent of our pre-pandemic numbers, due to necessary social distancing requirements. Having found other ways to exercise, some users in the UK have also simply decided not to return until after the summer (September). Our clients based in Australia, Hong Kong and the UK that have been open for at least six weeks have seen up to 79 per cent of customers recording a minimum of one visit, but that still leaves a group of 21 per cent of people who didn’t cancel during extended lockdowns, but who have yet to return.
