Marven Yacoub's take on On-Site Fitness: Transformation from In-Person to Hybrid Change Model

Marven Yacoub's take on On-Site Fitness: Transformation from In-Person to Hybrid Change Model

Marven Yacoub, a skilled fitness trainer, feels that the fitness business is ready for exponential expansion following the epidemic. He also argues that workout preferences would change away from gyms and towards outdoor, home fitness, and digital possibilities.

Even though each market segment attempts to give consumers the benefits of exercise, they are in direct rivalry to become the best alternative. He also believes that the sector is in for a vast upheaval. There are already significant indicators of change on the horizon.

In Marven Yacoub's opinion, On-site fitness is transforming from an in-person to a hybrid change Model.

The pandemic has caused the $97 billion global health club sector to modify its operations to prevent person-to-person interaction.

However, Marven Yacoub feels that there is potential for traditional gyms and studios: 30 percent of US customers went to the gym or studio atleast once in the first two weeks of February 2021, while 70 percent of fitness consumers report missing the gym as much as they miss family and friends. For vaccinated consumers, 35 percent went to the gym, a significant improvement above gyms' pre-pandemic market penetration of roughly 25 percent in the United States.

As economies reopen, gyms or studios should reevaluate their value propositions and set them in the perspective of consumers' portfolio to fitness, particularly recognizing their promise as third places—community hubs—where members may focus on themselves.

Reaching wellness lovers, researcher-experimenters, as well as traditionalists can be vital for gyms and studios. Wellness fanatics are likely to return; traditionalists who have not yet established new habits may reconsolidate gyms and studios into their routine once they feel safe. Similarly, researcher-experimenters are prone to be tempted by the range of fresh alternatives.

Crucially, Marven Yacoub suggests that gyms and studios should build communities to address consumers' psychological demand for belonging and mutual support. Community kinds can vary, from ones structured around leaders or experts—instructors—to supporting or competitive groups, but our studies show that they all help members feel that they are spending time for themselves.

For instance, one UK gym developed a virtual jogging club—with social media support—to foster a sense of unity and healthy competitiveness during the pandemic.

In addition to determining the optimum community type for the club's ideals and its members, gyms and studios should explain their value propositions for their target consumers and change them if required. One promising area may be analyzing floor-space usage and productivity in a similar way to a traditional retailer.

For instance, if a gym's members have changed to undertaking independent cardiovascular activity outside the gym, decision-makers can adjust the gym's layout and reallocate space accordingly. One large chain of gyms took members outside the facility with outdoor-class experiences. It developed its streaming service for courses on demand, reflecting the trend of many gyms' reallocation of floor space.

To fit within consumers' portfolio of fitness habits, Marven Yacoub recommends that gyms & studios investigate methods to partner with producers of complementary goods. Based on their value propositions and ambitions, a gym and a fitness tracker may well be good collaborators. Even pre-pandemic, a fitness studio chain successfully collaborated with an indoor-cycling chain using their joint value proposition of live performance tracking that motivates members.

With the continued expansion of fit-tech capabilities, traditional on-site fitness players may have the potential to give data and performance tracking in creative areas such as power measured by someone's output in watts. To fulfill certain members' urge for connection and self-expression—consider wellness enthusiasts whose identities are based around fitness—gyms and studios can create facilities to enhance community involvement or give visually appealing spaces for social media posts. One biking club has utilized a mural to promote social media activity.

Clubs can also revamp memberships and pricing to allow greater flexibility for members who are now exercising in numerous ways and improving retention and average revenue per user. Not only did the pandemic drive some competitors to close, changing demand and price tolerances, but it also forced the remaining gyms and studios to provide hybrid memberships that opened the door to broader models of pricing accessibility.

In the future, Marven Yacoub maintains that the fitness business can adopt traditional pricing analysis to improve their pricing—identifying value, matching offerings to consumer categories, and scheduling discounts. Like other industries, health businesses should invest the resources required to continuously experiment with new pricing methods and grow their products across the in-gym and at-home ecosystem.

Unfortunately, the economic impact of the pandemic resulted in more than a million lost jobs by the end of 2020. Gyms and studios may support the confidence of their workers by conveying their value propositions and staff's involvement in delivering those ambitions. Gyms and studios can also help the team gather data and select fitness content for consumers in a fragmented market.

At the same time, gyms and studios can modify the size of their geographic and real-estate footprint and examine chances to expand or contract in different places based on their success. Over time, M&A opportunities will develop.