LONDON — Stuart Broster, managing director of Stakis Plc's chain of LivingWell health and leisure clubs, has a novel pitch to sell Britons on his gyms: the more you work out, the more curry and beer calories you can afford to consume afterward.
The British are increasingly aware of the benefits of exercise, and thanks to one of Europe's healthiest economies, they have more money to spend. That's encouraging U.K. companies from Stakis to brewing giant Whitbread Plc, armed with different strategies, to enter what they consider a huge potential market for health and fitness clubs.
"We believe that the opportunity is on the order of 45 or 50 clubs, as quickly as we can do it," said Steve Philpott, managing director of Whitbread's David Lloyd Leisure, the U.K.'s biggest chain.
Health club participation in Britain is about half that in the U.S., where research group American Sports Data estimates about 8% of the population belonged to health clubs in 1995. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. alone, for example, has 330 fitness centers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
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While the U.K. may never be as fitness-frenzied as America--where talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey's cook and personal trainer are celebrities in their own right--more Britons are hitting the gym. The Henley Centre, a U.K. research group, estimates 66% of the population will consider itself "health conscious" by 2000.
Ivan Reback, 63, is among the thousands of Britons who spend anywhere from 400 pounds ($656) a year to more than 1,000 pounds to stay in shape. Reback, a retired small-business owner, paid a one-time fee of 400 pounds and about 520 pounds per year to work out regularly at a David Lloyd Leisure club in Bushey, a suburb of London.
"We used to belong to another club, but it was very small and didn't offer the same facilities," he said. "Mainly we use the treadmill and go swimming, and we have a snack too."
Health and fitness clubs will be a 850-million-pound market in 1997, and will grow to 1.06 billion pounds by 2000, according to marketing research company Mintel. Adjusted for inflation, that would represent growth of 27% since 1995, Mintel said.
Encouraged by those projections, and high consumer confidence, companies are "attacking the market," said Tim Baldwin, an analyst with Greig Middleton & Co.
Whitbread's other businesses, including brewing and the U.K. franchises of T.G.I. Friday's and Pizza Hut, do more to expand the waistline than to shrink it. In 1995, Whitbread paid more than 200 million pounds for David Lloyd Leisure.
