Kevin Conaway, the president at WellnessSpace Brands, shares how facilities are generating revenue through recovery and wellness spaces.
Today’s health club members want more than a great workout. They understand now more than ever that a balanced, total body approach to wellness should include a focus on fitness, diet, sleep, and proper rest and recovery.
For this reason, most major health club operators have all started incorporating various wellness and recovery services into their models.
The most widely used and successful services include water massage beds, cryotherapy, percussion therapy, red light therapy, stretching, and relaxation/mindfulness. These allow members to reset, recover and restore.
A recovery and wellness space can be incorporated into most fitness centers — even when square footage is limited — and add remarkable benefits to your club including:
Benefit No. 1: Direct positive impact to your club’s sales each month with more premium membership upgrades.
Benefit No. 2: Opportunity to attract more potential members with a broader and more innovative offering of services.
Benefit No. 3: Separates you from competitors in your local market to help increase membership retention.
Building out the Space
The design and atmosphere should reinforce how much additional value is delivered in this new space. Make the recovery and wellness area feel exclusive. Position it as a departure from the other areas in the gym to promote relaxation and recovery.
This can be accomplished with little upfront costs by adding calming music, low lighting, partitions with scenic graphics and soothing scents. It doesn’t need to feel like a luxury spa, however, incorporating a few nice design touches can really make a difference in member perception.
How to Monetize Your Wellness Space
To maximize your success, it pays to keep things simple and make it as easy as possible for members to buy from you:
- Create a bundled premium wellness membership package for $10 to $15 more per month, rather than trying to nickel and dime for each service separately. Members will appreciate this and be more willing to upgrade than pay out of pocket each time.
- With a two-tiered membership structure, highlight the gap in value between your basic and premium packages by listing two to three benefits for your basic package, and 10-plus services included with the premium membership.
- Showcase your wellness and recovery services prominently on your website with photos and videos.
- Prompt new prospective members to join on your website and reduce sales friction where possible by waiving enrollment fees for the premium membership.
A wellness space should be a win for both members and the club owner. When wellness and recovery are implemented properly, it’s not uncommon to see more than half of your members upgrade to the new premium package. Follow these simple steps and learn from other clubs that have done it successfully to unlock the immense potential value of a wellness space in your club.
