The European Health & Fitness Market Report 2020, the ninth joint publication of EuropeActive and Deloitte, represents the most comprehensive report on the European health and fitness market and serves as a valuable source of information for industry stakeholders. It shows the market continued to grow in 2019. The press release that was sent out yesterday (2 April 2020) included a note on the current COVID-19 situation.
According to the report, the European health and fitness market continued to grow strongly in 2019 as the total number of health and fitness club members increased by 3.8% to almost 65 million, strengthening fitness as the #1 sports activity in Europe. In total, the sector welcomed 2.4 million new members.
Total fitness club revenues were € 28.2 billion (+ 3.1% at constant currency)
The number of facilities increased by 2.3% to 63,644
Consolidation continues: the top 30 European fitness club operators accounted for 17.2 million members (+11.9%), representing 26.5% of all memberships
Merger and acquisition activity was strong in 2019 with 17 major M&A transactions in the operator market identified for this report
With a membership growth of 5.1% to 11.7 million members, Germany strengthened its position as the country with the highest number of members ahead of the United Kingdom (10.4 million), France (6.2 million), Italy (5.5 million) and Spain (5.5 million).
Leading in Europe
Overall, 8.1% of the total European population were health or fitness club members, with a penetration rate of 9.7% for people aged 15 years and older. Thus, the high penetration rates in most Northern and Central European countries were partly offset by lower market penetration in many Southern and Eastern European fitness markets.
With 2.22 million members, Basic-Fit became the number one operator in Europe, both in terms of members and clubs, ahead of RSG Group with 2.05 million members. Pure Gym (1.35 million), clever fit (950,000), and The Gym Group (794,000) completed the top 5.
Operators
Premium operator David Lloyd Leisure again generated the highest revenues with EUR 587 million. Low-cost operator Basic-Fit (EUR 515 million) came in second, followed by SATS Group (EUR 405 million), Swiss operator Migros Group (EUR 367 million), and RSG Group (EUR 365 million).
The corona-effect
The 2020 EHFMR covers the calendar year 2019. In the press release that was sent to promote the report, the authors Karsten Hollasch (Deloitte) and Herman Rutgers (EuropeActive) also briefly addressed the developments relation to COVID-19: "The year 2019 was again an excellent one for the sector and we know from discussions with leaders in the industry that also the 1st quarter of 2020 had started very well. But in the last weeks we started to see initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is by now impacting our sector in an unprecedented way. In many countries health and fitness facilities have been ordered to close temporarily by governments or have closed voluntarily. In some countries, even a complete “lock-down” of society has been imposed and people have to stay at home. The good news is that our sector has evolved in the digital era and developed many different ways for members beyond the clubs to stay active anywhere and anytime. Many operators are experimenting with “digital fitness” by offering online classes or are encouraging their members to use the possibilities to exercise at home, taking advantage of the many apps and online exercise videos that are available. We encourage everyone to stay strong and wish you all the very best in these challenging times."
The report was made possible by the generous support of Basic-Fit, Exerp, GO fit, FIBO, IHRSA, Myzone, Technogym, Virtuagym and YANGA Sports Water and is available for EUR 299 (EuropeActive members only EUR 149,50) through EuropeActive’s Knowledge Centre