Gym Visits Inch Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels, Combatting Closures
A New Placer.ai analysis shows that although some Gold's Gym and 24 Hour Fitness locations are closing, gym visits across the industry are inching back to pre-pandemic levels.
Gyms and fitness centers, one of the first businesses to be closed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, are slowly rebounding, according to a new report by Placer.ai.
The week of June 29 saw the best gym visit rates since March 2nd, before much of the country went into lockdown as the coronavirus shuttered businesses, at 49.6% down from normal levels. This is an improvement from hte previous week, when the sector was down 52.1%.
Recovery imroved in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky and Wisconsin, while gym recovery stayed down in most other states, including New York, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, Washington and others.
Anytime Fitness saw numbers closest to normal levesl during the week of June 29th: visits were down 26.7%. The same week, Planet Fitness’s visits were down 45.4%; Gold’s Gym’s visits were down 48.2%; LA Fitness’s visits were down 59.1%; and 24 Hour Fitness’s visits were down 71.6% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Though still down from pre-pandemic levels, visitorship to all gyms has been steadily increasing every week, according to Placer.ai data.
Even as gym visits inch closer to pre-pandemic levels, they are still struggling: 24 Hour Fitness is closing 100 locations, and Gold’s Gym is also closing dozens of locations nationwide.
There is even more risk, Placer.ai found, as some of the public defaults to “at-home” gyms instead of returning to a shared space. On the other hand, the struggling 24 Hour Fitness and Gold’s Gym also had high levels of “cross-shopping,” in which visitors of these gyms also go to other chains. According to Placer.ai, 12.3% of 24 Hour Fitness visitors and 16.9% of Gold’s Gym visitors had been to a Planet Fitness location since the start of 2019, while 11.7% of 24 Hour Fitness visitors stop by a location and 8.1% of Gold’s Gym visitors cross-shopped to L.A. fitness during the same time period.
The study found that cross-shopping can be an effective way to fill the vaccum left by closing some locations of fitness center chains.