230 MILLION FITNESS MEMBERS GLOBALLY UNABLE TO ATTEND THE GYM
‘fitNdata’ monitors global fitness industry during ‘lock down’ in real time
LONDON 1 APRIL 2020 – 2.6bn people, or roughly 30% of the world’s population, are currently living under some form of lock down due to Covid-19. According to the latest statistics this has resulted in 64% of the world’s fitness sites being closed either by decree or voluntary arrangement.
As the contagion of fitness closures began to sweep across the world, ‘fitNdata’ (a global start up from The Leisure Database Company), began monitoring the effects of the pandemic on the fitness industry. Their platform is building global information on facility trends, brand names and consumer sentiment and will issue regular updates during the current crisis on this first-of-a-kind insight.
fitNdata has developed intelligent crawlers, trained to identify all fitness sites around the world as well as aggregating vast sources of fitness related data from the public domain including site details, facilities, classes, social media links and when they open and close. Not initially planning to release any figures until later this year, fitNdata is accelerating progress in order to provide the global fitness industry with much needed insight during these times.
As researchers race to develop drugs and vaccines for the disease, scientists and laboratory researchers monitor the situation country by country, hour by hour, and adapt the learning from the flus of 1918, 1957, 1968, SARS, MERS and Ebola. To date the fitness industry has no worldwide monitoring system in place and has no trend data available outside the UK.
The world’s new buzz words – ‘social distancing’, ‘self-isolation’, ‘flattening the curve’ and ‘lockdown’ are part of our new vocabulary along with a near obsession with cases and deaths. As the global fitness industry physically closes its doors and opens online in people’s homes, it too will create a new vocabulary and similar fascination with what is happening.
This is just the start of fitNdata creating detailed trends and insights for the global fitness industry and overcoming historical inconsistences of definition and counting. fitNdata’s starting point of 239,101* fitness sites globally is more comprehensive than the previously available and wildly varying estimates from a variety of sources.
ENDS
*fitNdata latest figures based on fitNdata crawlers having so far reached over 100 of the most populated countries of the 155 countries around the world where Apple have an app store
About fitNdata
fitNdata is a knowledge intensive start up using supervised machine learning, data scientists and real-time supply & consumer data to provide insight and predictive future trends for the global fitness industry for the first time on a global scale.
The business will create a powerful, open and scalable platform deliver unique insights, solutions and services that will rapidly become embedded and leveraged across the global health and fitness industry and established as the de facto standard and record of reference for the sector.
About The Leisure Database Company
The Leisure Database Company is a leading independent specialist in the leisure sector that has been auditing and reporting on the UK fitness industry for over 20 years as well as providing key market intelligence and analysis. The company works with a wide range of fitness operators, suppliers, consultants and investors to provide invaluable insight, informed decisions and competitive advantage.
About David Minton
David is well known for his unique industry knowledge and is in demand for his expert media commentary and public speaking. Helping businesses and individuals with the invaluable intelligence needed to make key decisions, David leads them through analysis into action, achievement and competitive advantage. He also works with leading journalists and publications to spark debate within and create support for the leisure, fitness, consultancy and financial industries and is the recognised go-to for market trends, data and insight.
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