Fitness Boom in Europe Continues: Industry Grows Constantly

Good news for the fitness industry: At the 6th European Health & Fitness Forum (EHFF) the organisation EuropeActive, which represents the entire European health and fitness sector in Brussels, presented the results of its new fitness study.

According to the report, the European health and fitness market continued to grow strongly in 2018. The total number of fitness club members increased by 3.5% to 62.2 million. With a membership growth of 4.5 % to 11.1 million members, Germany continues to be the crown ahead of Great Britain, according to the study conducted in cooperation with the market research institute Deloitte.

1. Germany 11.090 million, +4.5 %
2. Great Britain 9.9 million, +1.9 %
3. France 5.96 million, +4.4 %
4. Italy 5.46 million, +2.6 %
5. Spain 5.33 million +2.5 %

In terms of market penetration, however, Sweden is first: 21.6% of the total population go to fitness clubs, closely followed by Norway (21.4%), Denmark (18.6%) and Switzerland (18.6%). Throughout Europe, 9.4% of people aged 15 and over have a card for the fitness club. The greatest opportunities for growth exist in Southern and Eastern Europe, where the market is still small.

"2018 was another year of growth for the industry," summarises Martin Rutgers, member of the EuropeActive Board and co-author of the report: "We saw more small and medium-sized facilities opening closer to where people live and work, making fitness even more accessible for all. We remain confident to reach the industry goal of 80 million members by 2025."

Among the companies, the McFit Global Group continues to dominate. With 1.95 million members, it remained ahead of Basic-Fit (1.84 million) in the European member ranking for 2018, which recorded the highest absolute member growth in comparison to the previous year (+316,000). Pure Gym (1.01 million), The Gym Group (0.72 million) and Clever fit (0.72 million).