European fitness clubs hit “record revenues” in 2023

The combined revenues for European health and fitness club operators reached €31.8 billion in 2023 – an all-time record high.

The figure comes from the annual European Health & Fitness Market Report 2024, from Deloitte and EuropeActive, published on 20 April 2024.

According to the report, the growth was driven by large operators expanding, alongside inflation-driven increases in the price of memberships.

The overall penetration of fitness club membership (percentage of gym memberships of total population) in 2023 was 8.4% – an increase from 7.9% in 2022.

Herman Rutgers, EuropeActive Ambassador and co-author of the report, said: “The European Health & Fitness Market Report has become the gold standard for market research in the fitness and physical activity sector.

“Based on the growth shown in our research and the outlook for 2024 and beyond expressed by the operators we interviewed, we are confident to reach EuropeActive’s ambition of getting to 100 million members of health & fitness centres by 2030. Other headline figures from the report include:

• At the end of 2023, there were 65,000 clubs across Europe (a +1.4% increase on 2022)

• The total number of members across European clubs in 2023 was 67.6 million, an increase of +7.5% from 62.9 million in 2022

• Europe’s top 20 fitness operators (by size) generated €6.3 bn in revenues, an increase of 19 per cent on 2022

• The top 20 fitness operators had 17.4 million members at the end of 2023, up 13 per cent on 2022

• The top three European fitness operators by membership are Basic-Fit (3.8 million members), RSG Group (2 million) and PureGym (1.9 million)

• The three top operators by revenues are Basic-Fit (€1,047 million), David Lloyd (€854 million) and PureGym (€621 million).