OPERATOR PERSPECTIVE
BELINDA STEWARD
The sector must collaborate to change the narrative and shine a light on its value, says Places Leisure’s MD Leisure, Health and Wellbeing
What’s the latest from Places Leisure? We’ve just ended our financial year – my first in the role – and it’s been a really strong year, with strong underlying growth within our existing estate. We also brought in 12 new sites across two new contracts, Northumberland and Spelthorne, to reach over 100 health and wellbeing facilities across the nation. This includes some swim-only sites, including lidos, as well as sports centres. We’ve seen a 10 per cent year-on-year growth in membership income, as well as continued growth in monthly visits: for the full year 2024–25, which ended on 31 March 2025, we had over 2 million visits to our centres each month. We’ve continued to invest in our facilities, too, and our NPS scores continue to rise. We’ve just completed a £6m investment at Elmbridge Xcel Leisure Complex, for example, extending the facilities, adding a health suite
and bringing in Costa Coffee. When you bring in Costa Coffee and other community offerings, such as libraries and educational courses, it isn’t only for members. You also attract the people who want somewhere to meet and socialise. It helps bring the sense of community hub to life. What’s driving this performance? The whole sector is buoyant, with demand outweighing supply, so there are opportunities for us all to be successful – provided we target the right people in the right way. That’s something we’re very focused on at Places Leisure, leaning in to different age groups and making ourselves relevant. Across our centres, the 35–44- and 45–54-year- old segments are our largest, but we have a fairly even split across the other age groups. We aren’t seeing any polarisation or bias towards one end of the age range: we seem to be attractive to all age groups.
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2025
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