DEFINITIONS
LEISURE DB
THE INFLUENCE OF FRANCHISING Joan Murphy, co-founder of Frame, adds extra weight to our argument when, in her interview on page 40, she points to the growth in boutique franchising and says: “Although many of London’s big boutique brands are multi-discipline, the rise of the owner- operator, single-genre franchised boutique means there are still more single-discipline studios than you might imagine.” Speaking of franchising, although our report doesn’t analyse boutique brand/studio ownership, the expert interviews woven throughout shine a spotlight on the current momentum in the boutique franchise space, as well as nodding to the pros and cons of this model. Check out our interviews with Jon Canarick (page 32), BFT’s Cameron Falloon (page 81), Barry’s Sandy Macaskill (page 51), Emma Barry (page 20), Frame’s Joan Murphy (page 40), United Fitness Brands (page 66) and Xponential Fitness (page 84). Boutique fitness is certainly a rapidly changing market, and we warmly welcome debate on our methodology, definitions and areas of focus as the boutique fitness sector continues to evolve – and we seek to evolve future editions of this report with it.
First, London’s primary example of brand collaboration is currently United Fitness Brands (UFB) – see our full interview on page 66. UFB customers are able to pick and choose from the sister brands, which from a consumer-facing perspective remain distinct. We therefore continue to list them separately in our report, which fits well with our classifications. Meanwhile, the launch of additional formats under a single brand are most evident in the Cardio category, where some studios now also offer Mind & Body classes (e.g. yoga, pilates). However, our data shows that almost all studios still have a primary focus – both in their product and their brand heritage – and we have categorised them according to this. The numbers give us further confidence that ours remains a valid approach. For this 2023 report, of the 102 sites in the Mind & Body category, only two of them offer anything other than barre, yoga and pilates. Of the 159 Cardio sites, 51 also offer barre/ yoga/pilates alongside their primary cardio offering – but this is still only around a third of sites. CrossFit is a totally separate category; it has no overlap with our other studio classifications.
UFB is London’s primary example of brand collaboration
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LONDON BOUTIQUE STUDIO REPORT 2023
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