Fitness tycoon rebrands to beat the crunch

Mar 5 2009 by Chris Knox, The Journal

FITNESS tycoon Stan Henry is hopeful of coming through the recession intact after slashing prices at his health clubs and moving away from the costly swimming pool market.

The entrepreneur has operated the Springs Sanctuary Spa Health Club chain for the past 20 years and is now rebranding three of his five sites as Easy-Gym, in order to appeal to a wider market.

The firm now hopes to grow its turnover by 10% year on year as well as add to its 200-strong workforce as it increases its portfolio of sites.

His three Tyneside centres have now seen membership double to around 5,000 since October, with Mr Henry hopeful that this trend will continue enough to allow him to open additional sites throughout the North East.

He said: “The leisure industry is on its knees at the moment and we had a situation where our members were leaving us in their droves.

“We had to refocus the business and have now seen most of these people return, bringing with them new customers.

“We couldn’t go on absorbing rocketing running costs without putting up membership fees. But we were reluctant to do that, particularly bearing in mind that many of our people were already beginning to feel the cold draught of the countrywide downturn.”