The European health and fitness sector consists of approximately 48.000 facilities, 50 million members and 400.000 employees. The European market is valued at almost 30 billion euro and is therefore the largest fitness market in the world.

For decades this sector has consistently grown in terms of members, clubs, professionalism, etcetera. A key factor in this development is the innovative power of fitness entrepreneurs, professionals and others. New concepts, programmes, and systems arise ev...

Group Fitness in Europe

In 2012, EuropeActive started to systematically conduct research on multiple topics in the

health and fitness sector. The first publication in this series was the book titled The state of

research in the global fitness industry. This publication was based on a systematic search and

review, summarising 5,348 studies in total.

In 2018, the most comprehensive study on personal training in Europe was published by

EuropeActive and Edelhelfer (Gronau and Titze, 2018). This s...

Between 2007 and 2017, the European fitness market grew in volume from 36 to 60 million

members which was a whopping growth of 67% in a decade. The biggest changes impacting the sector are: The rise of low cost, internationalisation of suppliers and health club chains, the acceptance of fitness as mainstream physical activity or sport, the arrival of boutiques studios, the impact of advanced technology in equipment and management systems, the invention of apps and wearables and the increased p...

If ever there was a time when ‘business as usual’ will not work, it is now. A new and different approach on many fronts is needed, with strong inspirational leadership. And that is where the concept of transformational leadership comes in.

We need this style of leadership in order to survive the current crises and to continue to grow and prosper in our sector in order to achieve the industry goal of 100 million members by 2030, which was formulated by EuropeActive at the end of the last d...

An overwhelming amount of studies have demonstrated that exercise is beneficial for health. Exercise is medicine! But do people take the medicine? And for how long? How can exercise behaviour be increased? This thesis focusses on exercise behaviour which contains planned, structured, repetitive bodily movements with the intention to improve or maintain (physical) fitness or health. The trans theoretical model of behaviour change (TTM) is often used to understand changes in health related be...

HORIZON 2030

The future of the health and fitness sector

In the decade that just has come to an end, the European fitness market (based on EuropeActive & Deloitte data) has seen tremendous growth. The total number of members active in our 62,000 facilities grew from 37 million in 2008 to 62,2 million in 2018, a growth of 68% in a decade, or almost 7% per annum on average.

These numbers illustrate that the changes in market size have been enormous. But not just in size. This exponential grow...

Many professionals in several sectors start out as trainers in paid employment, but eventually work as self-employed entrepreneurs. Whatever form you choose, it is not only about training, coaching, teaching or supporting clients. As a professional you also have to work on building your own business. When it comes to your business, topics like financial management, marketing and sales, but also legal issues are important. In this book, 10 main topics are presented and discussed, including mul...

HUMAN CAPITAL

IN THE FITNESS and ACTIVE LEISURE SECTOR

Human capital is defined in multiple ways, for example the skills the labour force possesses and is regarded as a resource or asset. In most definitions it encompasses the notion that there are investments in people (e.g. education, training, development), and that these investments increase an individual's productivity, as well as the collective productivity and uniqueness of a company or group of people.

The fitness sector has grown tre...

With more than 52 million members, fitness is the largest sport in Europe. However, with a penetration rate of around 15% of total population, the market has not yet reached its full potential. There are many opportunities to grow and achieve EuropeActive's goal of 80 million members by 2025.

To achieve this challenge, the sector needs to focus on finding ways to keep existing members and clients longer, and to reach out to new target groups. The term customer engagement and customer experien...