A Market Analysis for Fitness Clubs in Stralsund


Term Paper, 2012

39 Pages, Grade: 1,3


Excerpt


I. Table of Content

II. List of Figures

III. Executive Summary
1. Introduction
1.1. Scope
1.2. Aims and Questions
1.3. Limitations
2. Preparation
2.1. Explanation of Research Design
2.2. Construction of the Questionnaire
2.3. Pre-Test
3. Research and Results
3.1. Survey Implementation
3.2. Univariate Results
3.2.1. Joining Year
3.2.2. Main Motivation
3.2.3. Choice of Fitness Studio
3.2.4. Training Area
3.2.5. Support of Customers
3.2.6. Importance of Hygiene
3.2.7. Additional Information
3.2.8. Cost-Benefit-Ratio
3.2.9. Services offered
3.2.10. Appearance
3.2.11. Neatness
3.2.12. Membership Fees
3.2.13. Contract Period
3.2.14. Beverage Flat Rate
3.2.15. Age Distribution
3.2.16. Residential Area
3.2.17. Occupation
3.2.18. Income
3.2.19. Remarks
3.3. Multivariate Results
3.3.1. Motivation and Choice of Studio
3.3.2. Joining Year and Age
3.3.3. Importance of Hygiene and Neatness
3.3.4. Beverage Flat Rate and Membership Fee
3.3.5. Beverage Flat Rate and Income

IV. Bibliography

V. Appendix
V.I. Questionnaire
V.II. Frequency Tables

II. List of Figures

Figure 1 ”The Five D's” (own figure)

Figure 2 Relative Frequency Distribution of Joining Year for n=98

Figure 3 Pie Chart about frequency distribution of Main Motivation for n=100

Figure 4 Relative frequency distribution of Fitness Studio Choice for n=100

Figure 5 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of preferred Training Area for n=100

Figure 6 Relative Frequency Distribution of wanted Customer Support for n=100

Figure 7 Pie chart about Frequency Distribution of Importance of Hygiene for n=100

Figure 8 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of desired Additional Information for n=98

Figure 9 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Cost-Benefit-Ratio for n=100

Figure 10 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Satisfaction with Services Offered for n=99

Figure 11 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Satisfaction with Appearance for n=100

Figure 12 Pie Chart About Frequent Distribution of Satisfaction with Neatness for n=100

Figure 13 Relative Frequency Distribution of Monthly Fees for n=93

Figure 14 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Contract Periods for n=80

Figure 15 Relative Frequency Distribution of Beverage Flat Rate for n=80

Figure 16 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribuion of Age Distribution for n=93

Figure 17 Relative Frequency Distribution of Residential Area for n=100.

Figure 18 Relative Frequency Distribution of Occupation for n=100

Figure 19 Relative Frequency Distribution of Income for n=93

Figure 20 Relative Frequency Distribution for Motivation/ Choice of Studio for n=100

Figure 21 Relative Frequenvy Distribution of Joining Year/ Age for n=98

Figure 22 Relative Frequency Distribution of Importance of Hygiene/ Neatness for n=100

Figure 23 Relative Frequency Distribution of Beverage Flat Rate/ Membership Fee for n=80

Figure 24 Relative FRequency Distribution of Beverage Flat RAte/ Income for n=80

III. Executive Summary

The present analysis was originally meant to give a general overview about the services offered, the target group and overall consumer satisfaction of all fitness clubs in Stralsund. Due to a lack of willingness to cooperate, the paper only concentrates on the fitness club ´Dynamic´ in Stralsund. It was opened in 1995 and its offers include inter alia a wide range of sports equipment, a sauna area as well as courses like back therapy training, step aerobics and WingTsun.

The results reveal insightful information that should be used for the future marketing strategy of the fitness club. For example the main motivation for choosing the club is not its price or the offered services but its location at Heinrich-Heine-Ring. Promotional activities should therefore focus on those aspects. Furthermore it became clear that especially the level of hygiene is of great importance to the interviewed sportspersons and that the presented neatness meets customers’ expectations to a great extend. However, negative points mentioned were too high monthly membership fees. Since a major percentage of the responders earns less than 2000€ per month, this hint should be taken into consideration.

The overall picture acknowledges the fact that the cost-benefit-ratio meets with the customers’ approval. For the Dynamic’s marketing strategy to stay successful, a detailed analysis of the club’s members as well as their expectation should be conducted. Therefore it is of importance to compare the desired target group with the actual members and tailor the Dynamic’s marketing strategy to the results.

The group members, Laura Herrmann und Mareike Demann, want to thank the Dynamic for the collaboration and wish a lot of success in the future.

1. Introduction

Generating a net product of 407 billion euro within the European Union in 2006, the sports sector exceeds even the areas of agriculture and forestry as well as the hospitality industry. Already in 2000 the sports share of the German gross domestic product accounted to 1,5% and more than 2,4% of the working population is employed in the field of sports (Daumann, 2011).

Over the past 15 to 20 years, the general interest in sport has increased enormously. In 2004, the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the year 2005 as the “International Year for Sport and Physical Education“. And the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations focus inter alia on achieving sporting activities that will help work and build peace (Felderer et. al, 2006).

One of the biggest sports economic factors depicts the fitness center, where one can find different devices for strength or endurance training, often supplemented by aerobic courses, sauna or wellness areas. Fitness studios offer a collective and often entertaining, sociable form of exercise or bodybuilding beyond the structure of classic sports clubs. In contrast to voluntary organizations they are commercially oriented. In Germany there are approximately 5690 fitness centres, but only 89 of them are located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Find Fitness, 2010). By the end of 2006, the industry recorded a population of around 6.3 million fitness studio members, making it almost as large as the German Football Federation (DFB) with approximately 6.7 million members (Hollasch, 2006).

As the bigger fitness club chains settle mostly in bigger cities with at least 80.000 inhabitants (McFit, 2012), Stralsund - a city of 58.000 souls - can rather not afford the ideal market size for such chains. But nevertheless the town has different (private) fitness clubs offers.

This paper is supposed to define the municipal market for fitness clubs and examine the coherence between offers and demand as well as to have a closer look on member satisfaction.

1.1. Scope

The following market analysis was written within the framework of the course “Market Research”, which is part of the “Leisure and Tourism Management” curriculum of the sixth semester. The planning, research and hence also the survey and analysis took place between April and June 2012, which is according to personal experience peak season for fitness clubs, as men and women become more figure-conscious considering the upcoming summer. During that time four fitness clubs in Stralsund were supposed to be part of this market research. There are some more sports offers in the city, but the project was supposed to concentrate on the biggest fitness clubs, which are:

HanseDom Stralsund GmbH Dynamic Fitness Club

Grünhufer Bogen 18 – 20 Heinrich-Heine-Ring 76

18437 Stralsund 18437 Stralsund

SHS Sporthaus Stralsund Gym Fitness World Studio GmbH

Barther Str. 88 Tribseer Damm 76

18437 Stralsund 18437 Stralsund

1.2. Aims and Questions

Before starting, both members of the project group have to ask themselves, what goals want to be achieved and what questions want to be answered when doing the research (Koch, 2009). The central questions for this project are:

How can the target group for fitness clubs in Stralsund be characterized?

How do the specific target groups differ and why?

How can those differences be used for the clubs’ particular marketing strategies?

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 1 ”The Five D's” (own figure)

The research has to be divided into different parts. According to Hüttner & Schwarting (2002), there are five phases of implementing a sophisticated market research. For this project this so-called 5 D’s-Model is going to be a general guideline. Definition and Design have to be determined before the actual involvement with clients and clubs.

1.3. Limitations

After the first contact with each of the fitness centers, the study unfortunately had to be cut down to one studio (Dynamic Fitness Club), as those responsible of the other three studios have not declared themselves ready to comply with cooperation. Therefore the group members were forced to revise the project: the overall universe was redefined to 100, since previous negotiations with the other fitness studios were relatively time consuming and the group members aimed at satisfying the set time limits. Nevertheless, the survey still represents a representative result. Therefore the original leading question (as mentioned above) had to be changed to the following:

How can the target group for the Dynamic Fitness Club in Stralsund be characterized?

How can the results be used for the club’s marketing strategy?

The language aspect might constitute a further limitation. The questionnaire was distributed in German to guarantee the comprehension of the questions. However, the results had to be translated into English for the analysis. At this point mistranslations could occur, especially at the aspect of “Remarks”.

2. Preparation

2.1. Explanation of Research Design

The questionnaire is based on a fields research since it enables the group members to revert to detailed and current information about the universe of interest. The survey represents a cross-sectional study since all data is collected once by the interviewers in a certain time frame (Bühner, 2010).

The survey is comprised of a two-sided question paper whose results are going to be compared and analyzed; furthermore interesting potential relationships shall be dissected. The universe of the survey solely captures members of the Dynamic Fitness Club in Stralsund and totals up to an amount of 1oo interviews. At this partial survey, arbitrarily chosen sportspersons were interviewed. Certain subjectivity cannot be precluded since the group members are no professional interviewers (Porst, 2009).

With the help of a personal face-to-face interview information could be collected immediately at the point of origin. Even though this strategy is rather time-consuming it is the only way to guarantee satisfactory actuality (Mummendey & Grau, 2008). Furthermore the group members decided to display the surveys at easily visible places in the fitness studio to reach more sportspersons on an all-day basis.

In order of the questionnaire to fulfil its purpose it has to be both valid and reliable. Since the setup of the survey ensures that the study is able to scientifically answer the questions it is intended to answer, validity is given. Reliability – meaning the extent to which a questionnaire gives consistent results – is guaranteed due to the fact that the questionnaire educes similar information each time it is used under the same conditions (Bühner, 2010).

2.2. Construction of the Questionnaire

For the construction of the questionnaires and their units of investigation the group members decided in favour of the standardised survey form. It contains predominantly closed questions as well as closed possible answers, a fact which offers a statistical evaluablity (Bühner, 2010).

The survey basically is divided in introductory questions, inquiries concerning customer satisfaction and personal details. By means of direct, understandable and precise wording as well as the prevention of redundancy, comprehensibility is being achieved (Bühner, 2010). The questionnaire consists of different kinds of questions: direct questions (e.g. inquiry no. 7), questions about facts (e.g. inquiry no. 1), and closed questions (e.g. inquiry no. 2). The questions 8, 9, 10 as well as 11 directly target customer satisfaction. By using emoticons, those questions are on the one hand easily to answer and on the other hand just to evaluate. Moreover, the questions are scaled differently: Number 2, 3, 4, 7, 15 and 16 concern a nominal scale; Questions 1, 12, 13, 14 and 17 (grouped) are scaled according to cardinality, whereas questions number 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are scaled ordinal. During the questionnaire’s creation the group members emphasized objectivity, validity and reliability (Kirchhoff, Kuhnt, Lipp & Schlawin, 2010; Mummendey & Grau, 2008).

2.3. Pre-Test

At 2nd April 2012 the group members conducted a pre-test with 10 fellow students, who were known for being a member in a local fitness club, to warrant the questions’ intelligibility as well as their adequate variance (Kirchhoff, Kuhnt, Lipp & Schlawin, 2010). The interviewed persons were requested to give suggestions for improvements. However, there was no need for modifications of any kind. The questionnaire required a time exposure of two to three minutes. That implies an overall expenditure of time of 2.5 hours for each interviewer, which nevertheless is relative to the studio’s attendances. The results of the pre-test are not included into the survey’s results, since it does not form a part of the determined time frame and was generally regarded as a preliminary questionnaire (Bühner, 2010; Mummendey & Grau, 2008).

3. Research and Results

3.1. Survey Implementation

The group members decided in favour of personal face-to-face interviews and 43 persons were interviewed in this specific way. Because of the time factor the members also had to fall back to the option laying out the surveys in different areas of the fitness studio. The questionnaires were doled out especially at the registration desk, which every sportsperson has to pass, at the tables in the waiting area and also in the sauna’s relaxation area. Furthermore the Dynamic’s employees pointed out to kindly fill out the questionnaire. However, one disadvantage of this method displays the fact that some interviewees did not answer all questions. This is the reason for varying absolute frequencies.

3.2. Univariate Results

3.2.1. Joining Year

The Dynamics fitness club opened up in 1995 and 7% of all respondents state that year to be their joining year. Between 1996 and 2006 among 1% and 4% decided to apply for membership, salient is here the year 2001 with 4%. The majority of the interviewees signed up between 2008 and 2012. Almost one third of all interviewed persons stated 2011 as the joining year. 2012 has the second largest percentage with 16%. The relatively high new membership figures of 2011 can be explained by the fact that a major fitness club closed down in Stralsund in that year. Furthermore, in March 2011 the Dynamic tendered a year-long contract with two months for free. The arithmetic average amounts here to 2007.21429.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 2 Relative Frequency Distribution of Joining Year for n=98

3.2.2. Main Motivation

33% of all responders state the aspect of general fitness as the main motivation for a fitness club enrollment, followed by the main motivation “muscle building” (20%). Loss of weight (17%) and health (16%) were stated by almost the same percentage. With 14%, the fewest interviewees cited the point “Wellbeing/ Fun”. The Dynamic has managed to offer sports equipment geared to the needs of all different customers' requirements. Generally, this analysis reveals much important information on the clientele. That information should be used for the marketing strategy.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 3 Pie Chart about frequency distribution of Main Motivation for n=100

3.2.3. Choice of Fitness Studio

The next questioned aimed at the reason for choosing explicitly the Dynamics Fitness Studio. Here the prime cause depicts the studio’s location at Heinrich-Heine-Ring 76 (39%). The atmosphere, price and friends that are members as well are almost level-pegging in terms of percentages. Nevertheless, with 17% and 16% those reasons trail behind the main reason. The special offers provided by the Dynamics convinced 5% of all interviewed persons. Therefore it might be advisable to extend the studio’s offers to become more attractive to sportspersons looking for courses like Zumba or yoga (see remarks). Here, too, the marketing strategy should especially focus on the studio’s location, e.g. promotion could be extended in Knieper.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 4 Relative frequency distribution of Fitness Studio Choice for n=100

3.2.4. Training Area

The majority of all responders (37%) prefer the Power Machine Area, followed by the Cardio Area (26%). 12% take part in courses for the greater part and 7% of the respondents mainly perform dumbbell training. The remaining 18% stated using all areas equally. The figures portend that all areas offered by the Dynamic meet with the cusomers’ approval. The balance of answers furthermore indicates that the offered studio size is appropiate and well-utilized.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 5 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of preferred Training Area for n=100

3.2.5. Support of Customers

Six interviewed persons stated to draw on support offered by the Dynamic regarding e.g. training advice. 2% more use that support relatively often, whereas “sometimes” was listed by 26%. The greatest percentage combines the aspect “rarely” with 37%. 23% of all responders never revert to offered care. Since generally only 14% draw on the offered care, the Dynamic might increase its efforts to offer support to every sportsperson by actively tendering support. In addition it would be advisable that there is always a coach on-site who is clearly recognizable. Supervised training hours should also be offered again since a great amount of members pay a fixed rate for training hours, which however, are not supplied anymore for more than six months.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 6 Relative Frequency Distribution of wanted Customer Support for n=100

3.2.6. Importance of Hygiene

The aspect of hygiene is of great importance to almost all interviewees. 58% state hygiene as absolutely important, followed by 36% claiming hygiene to be important. “Indifferent” was indicated by 4%, whereas only 2% stated hygiene as absolutely unimportant. Therefor it is of vital concernment to keep the recent standard of hygiene or even increase it further by e.g. regularly checking the changing rooms and shower areas or hinting repeatedly at using towels at the different training tools.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 7 Pie chart about Frequency Distribution of Importance of Hygiene for n=100

3.2.7. Additional Information

With the help of the next question the interviewers wanted to find out if the fitness studio members are willing to pay an onetime extra fee for additional information events (training/diet). However, the large part objected to that offer (58%). But since almost half of the interviewees were interested in that offering, the Dynamic might consider putting effort in that idea. The target audience of figure-conscious sportspersons can be increased and the Dynamic’s image might change to a fitness studio still more placing value on its customer’s health.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 8 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of desired Additional Information for n=98

3.2.8. Cost-Benefit-Ratio

The analysis shows that more than half of all responders are satisfied with the Dynamic’s value for money (55%) and 21% are even very satisfied. Almost the same percentage (19%) stated to be fairly satisfied. The unsatisfied persons amount to 3%, whereas 2% of all interviewed persons are very unsatisfied with the cost-benefit-ratio. Especially students stated that they perceive the monthly fee as too expensive (see remarks). The Dynamic might consider supplying special student offers to reach a great target group in Stralsund since the fitness studio is located closely to the university.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 9 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Cost-Benefit-Ratio for n=100

3.2.9. Services offered

The analysis of the services offered - e.g. courses, equipment, and beverages - can be compared to the prior question. The largest percentage (46%) of all interviewees is satisfied with the services provided by Dynamics, followed by very satisfied members (30%). Fairly satisfied are 20% of all responders. 3% stated to be unsatisfied, the remaining 1% indicated to be very unsatisfied. Here, too, most remarks refer to an increased amount of courses like Zumba.

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Figure 10 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Satisfaction with Services Offered for n=99

3.2.10. Appearance

In the majority the interviewed persons are satisfied with the fitness club’s appearance and its facility’s size (training area, changing rooms, showers). 35% are very satisfied and more than 50% state to be satisfied (53%). To be fairly satisfied is mentioned by 10% of the responders. The residual interviewees are unsatisfied with the Dynamic’s appearance (2%). Especially the partially damaged training tools were named to cause grounds for discontent (see remarks).

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 11 Pie Chart about Frequency Distribution of Satisfaction with Appearance for n=100

3.2.11. Neatness

Here, too, the large part of all responders is pleased with the neatness in the fitness studio’s training area, changing rooms and showers. Again more than half of all interviewees are satisfied (55%) and one third is very satisfied (33%). The persons being fairly satisfied amount to 11%. The extant 1% is unsatisfied with the neatness at this point. Here especially the men’s shower and changing room were cited in the remarks section.

[...]

Excerpt out of 39 pages

Details

Title
A Market Analysis for Fitness Clubs in Stralsund
College
Stralsund University of Applied Sciences
Course
Market Research
Grade
1,3
Authors
Year
2012
Pages
39
Catalog Number
V232425
ISBN (eBook)
9783656489313
ISBN (Book)
9783656490210
File size
755 KB
Language
English
Keywords
market, analysis, fitness, clubs, stralsund
Quote paper
Laura Herrmann (Author)Mareike Demann (Author), 2012, A Market Analysis for Fitness Clubs in Stralsund, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/232425

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