Virtuagym study shows significant COVID-19 recovery by European gyms

October 3, 2020

By analysing the data of over 6,000 European fitness clubs with almost five million members, Virtuagym, a provider of online and mobile coaching technology for fitness businesses, suggests that despite large revenue drops in March and April, gyms have almost recovered their revenue levels in July - and have more members than in January this year.

The news comes as Virtuagym conducted wider research into the short and long-term consequences of COVID-19, measuring KPI data from memberships, attendance, club performance, revenue, app usage trends, and more. Crucially, it points to the widescale adoption of digital services by owners of fitness businesses.

Virtuagym Chief Executive, Hugo Braam advises “it is great to see the resilience of our industry and at the same time how fitness entrepreneurs adapt through the adoption of digital services. We have seen that COVID-19 hits hardest with people who are overweight and have a low immunity system, so I think it is time for governments to start involving the fitness industry as a solution to the problem. Especially since our industry is enhancing their offering with digital services, it is perfectly positioned to make a changing impact on the population’s health and immunity level.”

Research results revealed the following:

Club membership takes a hit but stays steady

Virtuagym’s data shows that in April, the industry was at an all-time low in terms of memberships. Only 17% of clubs continued growing and 26% of European clubs shrank by at least -2%. Throughout the entire period, 50% of clubs maintained membership stability and in June, clubs quickly began to pick up memberships as spaces reopened. In this same month, 51% of clubs increased their memberships. On average clubs lost 8% of their members during the peak in April, but had fully recovered their member base by July.

Revenue dropped but picked back up again

In April, the revenue of fitness businesses in the Virtuagym system dropped to 58% compared to February. However, in July, club revenue returned to 88% again. This drop in revenue impacted most clubs, with between 41 - 82% of clubs seeing a significant reduction in revenue throughout the peak of COVID-19. In terms of revenue, March and April were particularly difficult months for the industry. By June however, more than 50% of clubs had witnessed a surge in revenue, in June averaging only 12% lower than the month before the COVID-19 lockdown.

More class bookings than ever before

Virtuagym data found that bookings reduced to 86% during COVID-19. However, 14% of bookings were still registered. These were mostly online group classes. In July, bookings rocketed to 137%, this is likely on account of government regulations, which required clubs to ensure members book ahead before entering the facility.

Key takeaways use of digital

Despite facility closures, digital fitness tracking remained popular throughout all phases of COVID-19. Exercise logging peaked early on and in March, 4.8 million exercises were logged. App usage peaked during this month too, when consumers switched from training in-person to working out with a mobile app. However, the biggest peak took place when clubs started to reopen. App usage was up 340% in the month of July and training plans saw a 100% increase when the pandemic first began.

Crucially, the data showed that building and maintaining communities was important for both members and business owners during the pandemic. In-app digital communities were the preferred ways to communicate during the closures. This can be seen in the almost seven million community posts, more than three times the amount registered in February. Creating and maintaining a community throughout COVID-19 has played a major role in how clubs provide value to their members. Ultimately, pursuing a hybrid training experience of both digital and in-person training was shown to be extremely popular amongst fitness professionals.

Virtuagym has partnerships in Australia with virtual group exercise provider Fitness On Demand and supports fitness franchise, Jetts Fitness.

Virtuagym supports more than 15 million consumers, over 6,000 health clubs and more than 30,000 trainers worldwide.

Click here to contact Virtuagym via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.

Image courtesy of Jetts Fitness

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