The health and fitness club sector’s reputation for being recession-proof has been dented by figures suggesting that the industry has fallen back to its pre-pandemic size.
According to the 20th annual State of the Fitness Industry Report, there has been a decline in the total number of sites, with an impact on memberships, market value and penetration rates, along with the highest number of full-time closures since records began.
The report, based on an audit of all venues in the UK, says the number of sites has fallen by 2.4 per cent compared with 2019 to 7,063, while memberships are down 4.7 per cent to 9.9 million. Market value is down by 4.3 per cent, the first year-on-year decrease since 2008. The penetration rate,
