Why most operators are spending money in the wrong places
There’s clearly been a premiumisation trend in fitness. Spaces look nicer. Lighting is better. Bathrooms feel more like hotels. Reception desks look like they’ve been imported from a Mayfair private members’ club.
Consumer expectation has also shifted. You can’t ignore that. If you’re charging £200, £300 or £400 a month, you can’t look neglected. You need to play the value proposition game.
But I also think parts of the industry have confused premium with progress.
Wellness has become about comfort and convenience. I’m not convinced that’s what health and fitness is about long term and there’s a point where premiumisation becomes over-engineering.
Do gyms need to look better than they did 10 years ago? Yes. But that doesn’t mean they need marble everywhere.
Think about hospitality. We went through a phase of opulence: marble bar tops, oversized florals, expensive fit-outs. Then it became cooler to be stripped back. Cool music. Good service. No fuss. It became slightly uncool to look overdone.
I think fitness will move that way too.
Effort is part of the product in fitness. When the environment becomes too comfortable, you drift away from the point of it.
Aesthetics matter, but only to a point
You wouldn’t put your worst photo on Tinder. You’d make yourself look presentable. Not wedding attire, but decent.
A gym is the same. The brand has to look like it cares. The space has to be clean. There needs to be a base level of polish. At Foundry, our fit-outs are basic. Furniture is recycled or upcycled. It’s intentionally stripped back.
But we’ve chosen specific premium touchpoints: Electronic check-in kiosks, GHD straighteners, Dyson hairdryers, decent shower products. Those things are deliberate.
Where operators waste money
In the small group training world, most operators are relatively lean. They don’t massively over-engineer.
In the broader mainstream sector, I think gyms overspend everywhere, particularly bathrooms and reception areas. They try to build hotels but they’re not hotels. They’re gyms.
We’ve always described our approach as “posh spit and sawdust”. Clean, presentable, intentional. But not overdone. You don’t need to impress people with marble. You need to impress them with standards.
You can’t necessarily apply one design rule across every site. In Moorgate, people walk in from 10-storey-high bank receptions. So yes, we’ve got a marble desk there. It even has live moss in it. In Vauxhall, that would feel ridiculous.
What members notice that you might not realise are the small, cumulative details: Dust under racks, mould in shower grout, worn towels and scratched screens.
When is your facility “good enough”?
You probably never feel like your facility is good enough. But if your retention is strong and your conversion numbers are stable over time, your facility is probably doing its job. That doesn’t mean you stop asking questions. You should still mystery shop. Still ask for feedback.
The real issue is opportunity cost. You could spend £25,000 retiling bathrooms. But does that improve retention? Or could that money improve coaching, systems or staff development instead?
Every improvement has a trade-off. Premiumisation only makes sense if the return justifies the distraction.
If there’s one thing that has disproportionate ROI, it’s cleanliness. A stripped-back gym that is immaculately maintained will always outperform a design-heavy space that feels tired.
Anything a customer physically touches matters more than what they glance at. The towels, the check-in screen, the taps, the hairdryers and the door handles.
Get those right consistently and you’re 80% of the way there. Premium doesn’t have to mean expensive. It means deliberate.