SPAIN: Evolution and Characteristics of the Private Sport Sector – Focus on Fitness Centres and Gyms

Section 931 of the CNAE 2009 includes the activities referred to the management of sports facilities (931.1), sport clubs’ activities (931.2), private sport centres or gyms (931.3), and other sport activities (931.9).

It has not been possible to include other sport activities, as the statistical sources available do not provide further breakdowns.

This refers to the various editions of the economic sector studies conducted by the consulting company DBK about the private sport centres, classified as gyms (information available at: www.​dbk.​es). This classification excludes all public sport facilities, including those that have been licensed out by the government. The information used in this paper comes from this source, unless otherwise specified. The economic data related to this sector varies considerably from one source to another. This is due, in part, to the fact that there is not a clear understanding of what the scope of this sector is or what it entails. As an example, the numbers provided by KPMG for the year 2007 state that this sector had 6,000 sport centres and total annual revenue around 1.7 billion euros (information available at www.​kpmg.​es). Meanwhile, the National Federation of Sport Facilities Owners calculated that the number of these companies surpassed 8,000 entities in 2006. However, their definition included “those (companies) that are in the business of leisure sport, physical exercise, physical sport activity, and lifeguards” (information available at www.​fneid.​es). The National Institute of Statistics estimated that this sector of Section 926 (sports activities) of the 1993 National Classification of Economic Activities Codes was composed of 13,778 companies with revenues amounting to 5.729 billion euros in 2007 (information available at www.​ine.​es).

According to the ‘Annual Study of the Spanish Fitness Market’ (Life Fitness, 2015), in 32 per cent of these centres, monthly dues were between 30 and 40 euros, while in 27 per cent of the centres, they were between 20 and 30 euros. As a group, six of every ten centres had monthly dues between 20 and 40 euros. As an example, the price of the monthly dues at Basic-Fit and VivaGym in May, 2016 was between 15.95 and 24.90 euros in both cases, with the VAT included, both having the same access and usage conditions (unlimited entry).

Tercer Informe Gimnasios Low Cost en España (Valcárcel, López, & García, 2015) analyses the evolution of these centres in the country as a whole; low-cost centres are defined as those centres with maximum monthly dues of 19.99 euros + VAT, although the dues could be 2 to 4 euros higher. This publication reports that in 2014 there were 39 private companies in Spain operating 200 centres. Of these companies, 20 per cent controlled 72 per cent of all fitness centres in Spain.