Bloomberg 2016

Last week David moderated a panel discussion at Bloomberg HQ for the e-Wellness & Technology Trends event which focused on how the fitness and wellness industry is changing due to technology. 

The first panel discussed "Millennials buying and consuming habits" and was moderated by Kate Cracknell, the editor of Health Club Management. Her panel included the CEOs of eGym, Fitbug and Pure Gym as well as the Group CIO of Virgin Active.

Millennials and their consumer habits is a vast topic but the panel successfully highlighted some of the more intriguing trends seen in this generation. Firstly, technology has put the power back in the consumer’s hand and in terms of the fitness industry this means that millennials want gyms to integrate their technology and data more seamlessly with their health devices like Fitbit, Apple and Android Wear. Secondly, millennials, unlike previous generations, feel no loyalty towards just one brand and enjoy the freedom of choice. Thus, no-contract, low-cost memberships and pay-as-you-go are ideal options for millennials. And so, the fitness industry must continue to innovate and challenge the market in order to satisfy this generation’s consumer appetite.

David’s panel discussed “Utilising Big Data to Monetise Wellness” and he was joined by PayasUgym, Babylon Health, Thriva and the Lifestyle, Health & Fitness Partnership Manager of Google Play.

With such a varied panel of healthcare start-ups, app developers and fitness facilitators there was plenty to be discussed in terms of how data is being utilised across the wellness industry. PayasUgym, for example, is the ideal service for the undecided fitness user and their data is fed back to gym operators as a means of understanding the consumer. Meanwhile, Thriva offers a home blood test kit and Babylon Health provide online doctor consultations and advice. Combining intelligent data with real doctors is disrupting how we access health care and the potential of analysing and improving our own health through data is a huge step. People want a quantified understanding of their own health and they want to be able to self-diagnose. Despite this the wellness industry is still working on connecting data to action but it’s evident that integration of services and products will be the prerequisite to success. The more data we collect and analyse the more questions we can answer but whilst we can utilise big data to monetise wellness, what are the ethics behind holding so much personal data?

 

The final panel, moderated by Ting Le Deng of Santander Bank, discussed “Virtual Reality (VR) & Gamification Taking Off in Cycling – Is this the future of sports & fitness?”. The panel included previous world champion cyclist Michael Rogers, ex-World Tour rider Matteo Carrara and representatives of Zwift, AbsolutBlack, Wahoo and Tacx.

Could VR and gamification enable more people to partake in sport? Time has always been a notable barrier to participation but gamification and VR in sport, particularly cycling, is enabling individuals with busy lifestyles to get involved. Another barrier to sports participation is competition but VR and gamification could be the home fitness solution if driven by a strong sense of community. It won’t be long until we can take part in the Tour De France live from the comfort of our living rooms.

However, it is apparent that the expansion of VR and gamification from cycling into other sports and fully into the fitness industry is still part of a broader strategy and will take time. It’s unlikely sports such as swimming will be as simple to gamify as cycling was. Yet it is evident that gamification does have the potential to fundamentally change the customer experience in gyms for example and gyms are openly ready to upgrade their hardware to allow for this development. 

By Abi Taylor, Research Supervisor

A whole street approach to improving health and activity in London

Cycling in London has seen remarkable growth, even since my last article for Sasakawa Sports Foundation in June 2015. During the morning rush hour in London’s zone 1 (the central area) 32% of all vehicles on the roads are now bicycles, and that includes me on my Brompton bike. 

In 2000 cars outnumbered cyclists by 11 to 1, by 2014 the ratio had dropped to 2 to 1, and unofficially in 2016, following the opening of some of the super-cycle-highways, 70% of vehicles on some roads are bicycles. Investment in cycling infrastructure, around one billion GB pounds, (131,471,890,500 Japanese Yen) is boosting the number of cyclists.

For tourists and locals alike this new world where cars, pedestrians and cyclists all have their own traffic lights, lanes and space will take a while to get used to. Unlike Japan, Londoners have been used to jaywalking but that is changing as everyone needs to be more alert and aware of others. All road users have a responsibility to each other now more than ever. This new bike culture shows what can be achieved by rethinking the process of getting around. Olympic legacy was one element in a perfect storm of events, politics and policies that changed behavioural patterns, adjusted attitudes and put common sense first. Londoner’s and tourists alike are discovering that cycling truly is one of the greatest feelings of freedom you can have in a modern city. 

Transport for London (TfL) not only has the budget to spend on the new cycling lanes but it also has a role in improving the health of Londoners. The importance of walking and cycling as part of everyday routine is being encouraged as these deliver huge economic and social benefits by keeping people active. The expected growth of cycling up to 2020 is estimated to deliver “£250 million in health economic benefits annually”. Increased walking and cycling offers many other advantages including cleaner air, less noise, more connected neighbourhoods, less stress and fewer road traffic accidents. A-whole-street approach to improving health and quality of life is being adopted by TfL. World-wide cities compete these days on ‘quality of life’ and the Monocle Quality of Life Survey of top 25 Cities has Tokyo first, Fukuoka seventh and Kyoto ninth, London is not listed so far. 

Since the launch of the public cycle hire scheme in July 2010, TfL confirmed over 52 million journeys have been made and the number of bikes have almost doubled since the 6,000 originally sponsored by Barclays Bank. The new sponsor, Santander Bank, is offering a free weekend this month and it is estimated that August 2016 will break the monthly record of 1.2 million hires. Bike events are adding to the interest in cycling and the Prudential Ride London 100 Mile event, a legacy from 2012, had 26,000 cyclists participating last month with an additional family ride around the London sites and a smaller 46 mile ride too. The media company Sky, who also sponsor Team Sky, with successes in major events like Tour de France, have expanded their city-wide rides in to cities outside London due to popular demand. Sky Ride will reach the magic figure of 1 million registered riders this year.

The London Plan, the statutory spatial development strategy for Greater London, has recognised that new residential and office developments must have higher levels of cycle parking to meet the growing demand. Released in March 2015, the Plan has doubled the cycle parking for new offices to one space for every 90 sq. m. of gross floor area. The new standards allow for between 8-15% of the workforce to travel to work by bike. New residential developments also have higher standards of two spaces for all two bedrooms or bigger homes. The London Plan is reflecting the rapidly changing patterns of work and travel. Flexible working is now an option for many, particularly those with young children, so a better balance between work and home life can be achieved. The digital economy and the rapid changes in technology are also driving changes in working patterns.

The philosophy of ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’ was developed by Dave Brailsford, the former performance director at British Cycling and now general manager of Team Sky. Brailsford believes by breaking down and identifying every aspect of the athlete’s performance and then making a 1% improvement in each area the performance can be significantly enhanced. The same philosophy can be flexible enough to be a tool for sustained improvement City-wide and ‘whole-street’ as shown by TfL and the London Plan. Other sports adopted the philosophy as the aim at Rio was to ensure Great Britain became the first home nation to deliver more medals at the following games. With 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze, a total of 67, putting Britain second in the medal table. It was the highest number of medals for Britain since 1908, so job done, till Tokyo 2020.

David Minton is the Director of The Leisure Database Company & Correspondent for SSF in London.

Original article can be found on the Sasakawa Sports Foundation website.

 

Rat Race 2016

This weekend the LeisureDB girls set out to complete London Rat Race in and around the Thames… here’s what happened. 

Meeting early on Saturday morning, we prepped ourselves to swim, crawl, jump, slide and laugh our way around the UK's wettest 10k obstacle race. The race has over 35 obstacles including a huge water slide, giant inflatables and the biggest water jump in any UK race. After a speedy warm up, the running began but within 10 minutes we had tackled the first water obstacle which involved diving over a huge blue inflatable tube. We were instantly soaked from head to toe. For two and a half hours we splashed around the course, balancing across massive see-saws, hoisting each other over walls, racing across the water in kayaks, climbing metal frames, bouncing across water-born trampolines but mostly laughing (...at the situations Natalie got herself into). None of us were graceful but a few memorable events included a trip and smack straight into a 10ft wall, some belly flops on the water trampolines and a loss of balance on a rubber dinghy resulting in tripping everyone else up.  

We arrived at the end of the race soaked, sore, bedraggled and bruised wet rats but still smiling from the hilarity of the event. Big shout out to the company Rat Race in charge of the smooth running of the event, they did a great job organising! They offer a variety of events around the UK at the weekends including endurance and adventure runs, races and obstacle courses. 

By Emma Haendiges 

Health & fitness industry to see 300% growth!

Via Health Club Management...

Byran O'Rourke believes the health and fitness industry is set for explosive growth over the next decade and could grow up to 300%. 

Here are David Minton's thoughts on the industry's potential...

It's currently the most exciting time to be in the fitness industry in terms of innovation, growth and potential. Three hundred per cent growth is definitely possible: the industry needs to think BIG. Globally we should be aiming for half a billion members. 

Penetration rates are very low in the global fitness industry at present - still in the low single figures in lots of countries - so the potential is enormous, especially in Asia and the developing world. However, there's still huge potential for the market in the UK too, which has grown by two million members since 2007 to achieve 14.3 per cent population penetration. 

Two factors will drive growth: education and experience. Operators need to focus on improving both. Following the lead of the hotel industry, they need to keep investing in the product and innovating. 

They also need to get better at using data to connect with current and potential members. Although we're definitely seeing improvements, historically the industry has been poor at finding out how often members come, what they do and what they spend. 

Change will happen across all ages and demographics. However, certainly in the UK I don't see a huge growth coming from the healthcare sector at the moment because, to engage with the NHS, the industry will need to become far more professional, start talking the same language and take part in clinical trials. 

PRESS RELEASE: Social Media Fitness Index Q2 2016 Report

PRESS RELEASE - SOCIAL MEDIA FITNESS INDEX Q2 2016 REPORT

 

1st August 2016 

993k Facebook likes, 55k Instagram followers, 262k Twitter followers, 10.6k YouTube subscribers*

Xercise4Less ranks 1st in social media stakes

One brand tops three social media platform rankings

*Across the top 20 private brands in Q2 2016

 

LeisureDB’s Social Media Fitness Index Q2 2016 report reveals that low cost private brands continue to be excelling on social media. Xercise4Less have topped the overall ranking this quarter ahead of second placed Pure Gym.

Following a storming performance in Q2 2016, Xercise4Less have overtaken all other brands in 3 of the 4 social media platforms. Meanwhile, 7 of the top 15 fitness brands have dropped between 1-10% in the overall scoring.

Despite the number of likes, followers, subscribers and views across all channels growing in Q2 2016 from Q1, there has still been less activity and engagement. Could this be a result of more social media activity taking place during the new year fitness boom? And why are brands still failing to provoke responses to their posts?

Commenting on the report findings, David Minton, Director of LeisureDB said: “Fitness industry brands could grow quickly if they took advantage of the opportunities to connect with the consumers…We will be looking out for improvements in Q3 2016”.

 

Notes:

The reporting period is the 3 months from 1st April 2016 to 30th June 2016. LeisureDB who has been monitoring performance of the fitness industry for over 30 years compiled the analysis and resulting figures.

 

Further Information:

LeisureDB is a leading independent database specialist who provides key market intelligence and analysis across the industry. Established over 30 years ago, the company works with a wide range of fitness operators providing customer profiling reports, new site analysis and latent demand estimates. 2016 sees the launch of 2 new services: LeisureDB Mobile Apps and the LeisureDB Social Media Fitness Index.

 

www.leisuredb.com

enquiries@leisuredb.com

Tel: 020 3735 8491

David Minton's interview with Community Sport Network

Original article can be found here.  

CSN catches up with David Minton, Director of The Leisure Database Company.

You have been active in the leisure industry for many years. Where have the biggest changes been? 

I’ve been in the leisure industry for longer than I care to remember and on the way there have been some amazing changes including computing power, my iPhone 6 is more powerful than the first computer we started compiling the database on thirty years ago. GPS was another giant step forward where we could map the facilities for the first time, now we take 3d maps for granted. Over this period the interest in and expansion of personal improvement and fitness has expanded beyond what anyone could have predicted. We are now living through the biggest period of change that’s driven by technology and community sport so far has failed to adapt and take advantage of the opportunities.

The new Sport England Sporting Future strategy indicates a change in investment strategy and approach. How do you see this rolling out? 

It’s too early to comment on the new Sporting Future strategy (or Brexit, or the new England football Manager) but it’s important to see where any new strategy fits in with the aggregators who are using new technology to connect direct with the sports consumer.  There’s over twenty new tech aggregators mostly British but some from the USA, India, Israel and Australia working on ideas to link up community sport and the consumer. A lot will happen in 2016 as some have been successful at crowd funding or private money behind them.

How critical is it for the adoption of new technologies to tackle the high levels of inactivity that we still see? 

Crucial! As far as I’m aware there is not one public sports API (an abbreviation for application program interface) of useful data for the above aggregators to use. A few years ago Transport for London decided to make their ‘live’ tube, bus, rail, road, bike and river data available to tech companies via APIs, now over 100 apps have been developed to help people travel around London easier than ever before. Imagine the frustration among young techies who are passionate about sport but have no data to work with.

How can the application of technology persuade behavioural change at an individual level? 

Technology together with social media and advertising can help with behavioural change and there’s lots of examples where this has worked including; female boxing, Nicola Adams as role model plus lots of fitness sites programming ‘boxercise’ style classes and Kobox is the first UK boutique boxing studio. Boomers are embracing life and examples of ‘Rad Dads returning to skateboarding, skate sessions grew 100% in four years, or kite surfing where 10% of surfers are over 35, or, Ironman where the average triathlete is aged 41. There are now 225 registered walking football clubs in the UK which offers risk free exercise to an older demographic. Driven by players uploading content and building communities Ultimate Frisbee is played in more than 80 countries by 7 million people. We’re in the tenth year of Persil’s ‘Dirt is Good’ advert which has now moved into campaigning and promoting kids activities around the country after it was discovered the average child spends less time outside than a prison inmate. Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign set out to challenge stereotypes and has had encouraging uplift among women. Health and fitness is at the heart of self-actualisation and big brands are creating ambient wellness innovations for those with good intentions but little action. Reebok, for example, created pop-up outdoor gyms at bus shelters as part of The Gym is everywhere campaign. Virgin Active’s new fun advert, We’ve Got a Workout For That, focuses on different scenarios that the gym can help you prepare for.  A yogurt drink brand put 6,000 health monitoring straps on 200 buses in Beijing which measured heart rate, BMI and balance when held on the daily commute. Results were uploaded through NFC to the smartphone app and over 350,000 people used the straps and the topic was shared 3m times. Whatever sport you are ‘selling’ make sure it adds to the self-actualisation data already being collected by the new super connected.    

What are the main barriers to success that the Sporting Future strategy will need to overcome? 

It needs to be more consumer focused so the following areas need to be considered, customer focused personalised push notifications are becoming common across other areas of life, why not sport? More opportunities to experiment without immediate commitment, building online communities to support and encourage, creating accessibility through more diverse activities, deregulated sport is growing so encourage it and a focus on strength based fitness over workout for weight loss while addressing a more inclusive attitude to being active.

What are you working on right now that can help be part of the future ‘fix’?

Refinements and upgrades to LeisureDB’s fitness supply demand modelling work continue and our estimates of ‘latent demand’ on any given site is around 90% accurate now. Four years ago we started working with the start-up company, AiT (Active in Time). AiT develops sports and fitness apps including the swimming app Speedo Fit. This app is now live in 120 countries and has over 3 million page views a month. AiT provides pool owners and managers with free software so pool information can be in real time live on the app, the website, in-house screens, social media and via a print API, on posters and in print. Around half of all public swimming pools have adopted this free software and consumers obviously find it useful as the majority of page accesses are for timetable data. The same software is now available for studio classes and sports halls and hopefully this small step to make live information more searchable will encourage more participation.    

Flame Conference 2016

Last week we attended the annual UK Active Flame Conference in Telford...here's a brief insight of our time there.

The conference kicked off with a talk from Tanni Grey-Thompson, the chair of UK Active, who noted that “collaboration is key to continued sector progress”. Tanni’s keynote was followed by a thought provoking talk from Steffan Hyttfors, a futurist. Using the notable catchphrase ‘WTF?’ (What’s The Future), Steffan highlighted that we must embrace the future and the changes it will bring. He believes that technology has no borders and disruption is rifer due to ever increasing innovation. Hyttfors also noted that “companies aren’t going bust because they’re bad, we just don’t need them anymore” and that 70% of Fortune 500 companies won’t be here in 10 years’ time.

Next up, we listened to Laura Penhaul who led the first all-female crew to row across the Pacific Ocean from US to Australia. Laura shared her experiences of the good, the bad and the ugly whilst at sea for 257 days. Impressed by not only her determination, we were also pretty blown away by the images of whales, sharks and turtles floating below their boat ‘Doris’. We’re looking forward to seeing all of Laura’s story in the upcoming documentary “Losing Sight of Shore”. Laura aims to inspire others and encourage them to find their own Pacific and conquer any life challenges.

From one inspiring individual to another, we listened to Simon Wheatcroft’s story. Simon lost his sight aged 17 but refuses to quit. Instead he became an ultramarathon runner. He started out by running around his local football field to tackling roads and then even the desert. Simon, who began his running career by utilising RunKeeper and the help of running companions, has now partnered with IBM to create technology to enable him to run solo.

After lunch, we listened to Sean Fitzpatrick, the most-capped All Black player ever. With a humorous yet heart-warming approach, Fitzy discussed leadership, the importance of winning and how “good people, make a good team”. Amazed by his flair, we followed Fitzy to the panel room where he talked about inspiring future leaders with Dame Kelly Holmes. double Olympic gold medallist, Sarah Edmonds, Director of Quality & Standards at Active IQ and Sharon Pavitt, the head of the Nuffield Academy.

After even more refreshments, and a quick go on PRAMA, an interactive fitness platform paired with the Oculus Rift headset, we headed back to the keynote theatre to listen to George Berkowski, a technology entrepreneur and writer of “How to Build a Billion Dollar App”. George, also director of the taxi app Hailocab, discussed disruption in the mobile app business and how the fitness industry will soon be disrupted by artificial intelligence and augmented reality. He gave an eye opening account of how Uber is monetizing on our every move; they watch our battery life to add surcharges and log our drops off points to help lower future traffic congestion. Once again, innovation is the key word here.

Steven Ward, Executive Director of UK Active, wrapped up the day’s events by underlining his vision for the year ahead with his key aim set at preventing inactivity within the UK.

Later that evening the awards ceremony took place…congratulations to all winners and runners up of the awards! A comprehensive list of the winners can be found here.

Thank you to UK Active for another fantastic event and we can’t wait for next year which will no doubt be even bigger and better.

Written by Abi Taylor, Sports Researcher

 
 

Who Needs Twitter?

 
 

Twitter is live. Twitter is real-time. Twitter is about who and what you follow.

Twitter is an ideal platform for brands but the fitness industry has a lot of catching up to do. The industry has 9.2 million fitness members (according to The Leisure Database Company’s 2016 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report) but across the top 20 private fitness brands it can only boast 248k followers on Twitter.

So who needs Twitter? The fitness industry!

See how the top 20 private operators performed on Twitter in Q1 2016 in our brand new Social Media Fitness Index. 

Press Release: Social Media Fitness Index Q1 2016

SOCIAL MEDIA FITNESS INDEX Q1 2016 REPORT

3rd June 2016

 

946k Facebook likes, 46k Instagram followers, 248k Twitter followers, 9.3k YouTube subscribers*

Pure Gym ranks 1st in social media stakes

One brand tops two social media platform rankings

*Across the top 20 private brands in Q1 2016

 

The brand new LeisureDB Social Media Fitness Index Q1 2016 report reveals that low cost private brands are excelling on social media, with two big names of the industry dominating the top places.

The Q1 2016 report highlights that overall brand social media presence is growing. Over half of the top 20 private brands gained 1,000+ Facebook likes in Q1 2016 whilst the collective Twitter audience grew 6%.

Whilst some brands are digitally aware, there’s plenty of room for improvement. There needs to be more posts, more interaction and higher engagement.

Facebook is the most common social media platform among the top 20 private brands whilst Instagram is being under-utilised and neglected; only 8 of the top 20 have accounts.

Commenting on the report findings, David Minton, Director of LeisureDB said: “Sport and fitness have a lot of catching up to do. The industry has 9.2million UK fitness members but across the top 20 private fitness brands it can only boast 946k likes on Facebook, 46k followers on Instagram and 248k followers on Twitter. As a benchmark, this first report is a great snapshot of the private fitness industry’s top 20 social media activity in Q1 2016”. 

 

Notes:

The reporting period is the 3 months from 1st January 2016 to 31st March 2016. The Leisure Database Company who has been monitoring performance of the fitness industry for over 30 years compiled the analysis and resulting figures.

 

Further Information:

LeisureDB is a leading independent database specialist who provides key market intelligence and analysis across the industry. Established over 30 years ago, the company works with a wide range of fitness operators providing customer profiling reports, new site analysis and latent demand estimates.

SIBEC UK - May 2016

SIBEC UK – May 2016

Article from David Minton, Director @ The Leisure Database Company

Innovative Companies Impacting the Fitness Industry

For the first time I’ve compiled a purely personal list of some of the most innovative companies who have already, or will shortly, impact on our industry. It’s not meant to be exhaustive, just fun and maybe a little thought provoking. I’ve given each sector a name and picked one company I admire this week.

Apps: Apple App Store, opened in 2008 and by 2015, 100 billion downloads had been recorded. Apple ignited the app revolution and the iOS ecosystem has created over 627,000 jobs. It is expected that the app economy will exceed $150 billion worldwide by 2020. Yes there really is an app for everything, or soon will be.

BioTech: EnteroMedics, developer of vBloc, a neurometabolic therapy for disrupting the signals between the brain and stomach could fight obesity faster than HIIT. We always thought the magic pill would come first but BioTech seems to have done it.

Data Science: Under Armour have invested heavily in UA Record and UA HealthBox to create your body’s dashboard.

Drones: love them or hate them, DJI is the largest seller of consumer drones which enables race organisers and individuals to track and record activity from the sky, GoPro in the air.

Energy: SolarCity, there’s justifiable obsession with Elon Musk (Tesla Motors and SpaceX) who wants to reduce your energy costs with solar panels and he aims to make mass adoption possible.

Enterprise Software: Slack, it’s free and it’s the creative home of our work lives, its real-time messaging for modern teams, simpler and more productive than email.

Finance: Blockchain, a permissionless distributed database that’s upending traditional banking and the finance world, is now moving into other sectors including health and fitness. One to watch!

Hollywood: Netflix, the first global TV network that’s coming to a screen near your CV equipment and on your phone.

Internet of Things: Cisco, estimate 15 billion items are already connected and by 2020 all fitness equipment (along with our fridges, cars, home, work and pets) will be connected to a sector worth $6.5 billion.

Kick Ass Kit: Sweaty Betty, created in 1998 and a British pioneer in activewear, go join the waiting lists for the free instore classes and outdoor runs.

Livestreaming: Twitter’s Periscope, has had a head start but bigger players from the online video space are moving into livestreaming so it could soon become a duopoly.

Music: Spotify, it found the beat with Running, predict with Taste Rewind, discover with Found Them First, and an amazing 71% of listeners add at least one track from Discover Weekly. Fan Insights gives artists demographic and geographic analysis. Been listening whilst exercising recently, they know. Like they know what the most popular music genre, track, artist is in your city, town or village right now.

New Media: Buzzfeed, for showing how content can go viral and teaching brands to create not sell.

Photos: Instagram, many fitness sites are neglecting this highly engaging and superior indexing platform, why? The LeisureDB Social Media Fitness Index Q1 2016 will show the top 20 private fitness brands collectively have under 50,000 followers. Must try harder!

Retail: Amazon Echo and Prime, I just spoke to the future and it delivered! FOC fitness CDs (and some wine and treats) within the hour* – how do they do that?*One hour delivery only in London at present. 

Social Media: Facebook, the only platform all sites are on, the top 20 private fitness brands have almost 1 million followers (Leisuredb Social Media Fitness Index Q1 2016 coming soon). In 2014 Facebook bought Moves, an app that keeps track of your daily exercise as part of its multi app strategy and now with move-o-scope you can map all your activity which looks pretty cool.

Smartphones: Apple introduced the iPhone early 2007 and late 2008 the first phone to use Android was released. In less than ten years the smartphone has changed human behaviour in ways that few things could. The do-it-all smartphone has elbowed aside MP3 players, CDs, hard drives, calculators, paper maps, diaries, Blackberry, Nokia, cameras to name but a few. At the same time the smartphone has revolutionised the way consumers work, play sleep and wake up.

Style: Everlane, radical transparency about costs, mark up, creative process and details of manufacturing factories with photos. The fitness industry could learn a lot from this openness and consumer engagement in the product.

Video: YouTube, Randi Zuckerberg (Mark’s sister) put this as her number one social media channel, so checkout our ’60 Second UK Fitness News’ each week by subscribing to the ‘Fitness Industry UK’ channel.

VR and AR: Oculus Rift, it’s almost two years to the month when Facebook announced it had purchased the virtual reality start up for around $2 billion. The first fitness applications were at IHRSA and FIBO.

Press Release: 2016 State of the UK Swimming Industry Report

The 2016 State of the UK Swimming Industry Report reveals that the industry has experienced another year of slight decline over the twelve month period to the end of March 2016, with a decrease of 1% in the number of swimming pool sites.

Read More

A week at LeisureDB HQ

Article in The i Paper

Article in The i Paper

On Monday 16th we released our 2016 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report and we’re thrilled to say it’s been another year of success…the fitness industry is thriving! Thank you to everyone who’s mentioned or quoted us!

Last Thursday, David visited the Retention Convention in Birmingham and the line-up of speakers was pretty special. Dr Paul Bedford, or Guru Paul as he’s also known, discussed ‘Big Data, AI and its impact on Retention’. With the number of UK Fitness members exceeding 9 million for the first time ever, it’s vital we identify the best strategies for retention.

Tomorrow and Thursday takes Natalie to the Midlands for this year’s SIBEC UK event, another great opportunity to network within the fitness industry. Be sure to say hello!

Back at HQ, Charlotte and Abi are both working hard on LeisureDB’s next publications. Coming soon will be the 2016 State of the UK Swimming Industry Report and we can’t wait to let you know if the industry has changed. We’re also very excited to announce our brand new Social Media Fitness Index (Q1 2016). For the first time ever, we’ve ranked the top 20 private operators according to their best use of social media. Who will be number 1?