CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD
DAVID TURNER • CHAIRMAN, LEISURE DB
Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
F irstly, a big welcome to our 20th edition of the State of the Fitness Industry publication, offering a snapshot of the daily data analytics we collect at Leisure DB. Last year I highlighted the vital importance of data and, more importantly, the way we interpret and use it. This year I would like to focus on how we as an industry made up of multiple parts
and exciting opportunities for new initiatives and developments.
The discovery of medications that can solve weight-loss has blown apart the old myth that 60% of our members join a club for weight-loss. But the fears we had about a weight-loss pill has not affected membership or participation. New investments in longevity and
healthy aging and the growth in data collection from individual activity are opening up new opportunities for product development and placing. Whilst COVID con rmed the need and the real positioning of online individual and community participation, the need for personal connections in this increasingly isolated online world reinforces the knowledge that people come to locations to be part of and to build community. All these opportunities and industry interactions create new data and knowledge and to keep up with this explosion, it is vital to create centres of data understanding, analysis and interpretation. At Leisure DB this is our focus. Using data analysts and industry experienced professionals, we have built the nest data leisure industry analytics team working hand-in- hand to give the best and most valuable insight and interpretation of the data available. So, my appeal to you all is - to share and cooperate with us to help build an understanding of our collective past, to evaluate the present and to create a platform for a creative and innovative future based on this collective knowledge. The more we share, the wiser we will get! “However good we are individually, we are logarithmically better when we work together.”
and incredible individual and corporate commitment, interact together to understand and build an industry of service that is better than the sum of the parts. However good we are individually, we are logarithmically better when we work together. The Internet democratised knowledge. Anything we want to know is instantly available through Google searches or Wikipedia, and the explosion of AI tools can instantly give us information. We all have knowledge that we collect and build on on a daily basis. However, there is a fundamental gap between knowledge, understanding and wisdom! Wisdom and understanding are gained by sharing together existing information and ambitions to improve. When we share our knowledge with others, we gain an understanding of our knowledge and that shared understanding helps us build together the future. Great quotations can help encapsulate our thoughts and focus our actions and these three pearls of wisdom say it the way it is and has always been - His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote - “Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote - “The fundamental law of human beings is interdependence. A person is a person through other persons.” And Bertolt Brecht wrote - “Everyone needs help from everyone.” Our industry faces many new challenges
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2026
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