Cardinal Fitness abruptly closed six of its Indianapolis locations Tuesday and Wednesday.This article compliment of the Indystar.com.
This has set off a scramble of marketing for other local gyms and clubs to lure the members to there clubs. Marketing to already interested and paying members is always easier than weeding through new clients.
“We just couldn’t get membership where we needed. Those six locations were struggling, and they were taking down the other six. We had to make some hard decisions,” said Maribeth St. Pierre, project manager for Black Diamond, Wash., businessman John Bahlenhorst, who owns the six remaining Cardinal Fitness facilities in Indianapolis, two others in Indiana and five in Wisconsin.
The LA Fitness chain bought the memberships of the closed Cardinal Fitness facilities for a price that barely covered the final payroll at the six closed clubs, St. Pierre said.
The slowing and sluggish economy is certainly being felt everywhere even in the fitness industry which usually does very well even in down turns in the economy.
But other health clubs quickly began angling to sign on the former Cardinal Fitness members by offering special deals.
Westview Healthplex Sports Club offered to waive its enrollment fee and give a month’s free use of its club. The JCC Indianapolis on the Northside and Family Fun & Fitness on the Far Eastside dangled similar incentives.
“We are doing a lot of social media promotion” on Facebook and Twitter, said Devon Brown, manager at Family Fun & Fitness, which had already signed up several Cardinal Fitness members by Wednesday afternoon.
A winnowing out of health clubs was expected in a market that has seen the number of fitness facilities more than triple in the past 13 years, to the current number of slightly more than 100, said Kent Allison, director of membership services at Westview Healthplex, which opened 13 years ago.
It’s surprising to see health clubs, fitness centers close considering they already get paying members even if the members no longer come. This is due to them making you sign contracts for periods of at least a year. Maybe this is a sound off to fitness clubs…Quit making members sign contracts and charging them even when they are not using the services.
Article Source: indystar.com