Every club that’s made a significant investment in fitness has said it’s been an instant home run—and if anything, they wish they’d stepped up to the plate sooner, and brought a bigger bat.
Are you still hearing from any members and/or Board officers who think there’s no place for fitness at your club, or in the club business? Please tell them for me—and I’m sorry, there’s really no kind way to put this—that they’re a bunch of fatheads.
I still do occasionally talk with managers, or members, who express frustration that fitness can’t gain much, if any, traction at their clubs, and I find that to be mind-boggling. Every club I’ve visited over the past few years that’s made a significant investment in fitness facilities and programs has said, without exception, that it’s been an instant home run—and if anything, they now wish they’d stepped up to the plate sooner, and brought a bigger bat with them.
In the February 2014 issue, we highlight another great individual-club fitness success story, at Hillwood CC (see “Making It Big in Nashville”), and also kick off the five-part series we will present throughout this year on Building A Healthy Fitness Program (see “Blueprints for Wellness”). The first installment of the series quotes fitness directors from successful programs at individual clubs who have also become active in the Club Spa and Fitness Association, which has conducted surveys and research that shows, on an aggregate scale, just how prevalent, and successful, the trend to get serious about club fitness facilities has become.
To Three Carpenter, who helped Hillwood CC plan and launch its impressive new facility while he was that club’s General Manager, and before that directed a similarly successful project at Dallas (Texas) Country Club, adding fitness as a core offer in a private club is not a question of space, cost or synergy with existing amenities—it’s about being relevant.
“There’s a whole list of objections you’ll always hear,” Carpenter says. “We don’t have the land, our parking lot is too small, it will cut into our driving range. But if you want to be part of the future of this business and really appeal in as broad a way as possible to the members of tomorrow, and at the same time match up with how most of today’s members now look to get full value from their clubs, there’s no question that fitness is something you have to have.
“With each new fitness facility I’ve been involved with, the numbers have gotten bigger, both in terms of usage and how quickly the that usage has built up—and regardless of member size, the newer ones have always caught on at a faster pace,” Carpenter notes.
“To me, the real evidence of the huge difference that fitness can make at a club has always come when I’ve gone in on a Monday or holidays after we’ve opened up a new fitness center,” he adds. “When you see fifty cars in a parking lot at times when you’re supposed to be ‘closed,’ that’s a sign of real relevance you just can’t ignore.”
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