While rising obesity rates and declining physical activity levels represent a huge challenge for government, the problem also presents a great opportunity for leisure providers to become more involved in the public health agenda and deliver potentially life-changing results.
The spotlight has more recently shone on childhood inactivity in particular. There’s a generation at risk of longer-term health problems due to sedentary lifestyles, often compounded by the over-use of technology. ukactive’s recent Generation Inactive report, for instance, showed that only 50 per cent of the UK’s seven-year-olds are meeting current activity guidelines of an hour a day.
But rather than point the finger at ‘culprits’ like computers, iPads and PlayStations, more enlightened leisure facilities are starting to embrace the popularity of technology to attract more children and families into their facilities.
Virtual classes, which are becoming established among adults at many clubs and leisure facilities, have the potential to impact on children’s programming too.
Children’s activity specialist Chris Sharman, who heads up the iKidz Training and Consultancy, is currently developing exciting new content for a virtual kids class product, called iDEA, to be launched (see interview, right) at Leisure Industry Week 2015.
As someone who started out as a lifeguard, rising through the ranks of both public and private leisure operations, becoming head of family activities for the Esporta chain, Sharman is well aware of the challenges of catering to this segment of the market.
He says: “One of the biggest challenges providers face is finding the right people to deliver a variety of kids programmes, and to do it consistently well. It’s never been a well paid activity, earnings are commonly close to the minimum wage, so you’ll often find that instructors quickly move on to teach aerobics or PT where they can earn upwards of £25 an hour.
“So there’s a huge gap in instructor availability, which makes programming extremely difficult. Class cancellations are common due to the reliance on such a small pool of people for just a couple of hours each day, and many classes never get off the ground because clubs don’t attract the numbers to make running them economically viable.”
By contrast, he says, virtual classes require no specialist instructor, simply a facilitator to run the technology (any internet-enabled device and a screen) and guide the participants enthusiastically as they follow simple instructions on the screen. Clubs and centres have more flexibility to run these classes anywhere – perhaps in a studio, a conference room or even an old squash court – depending upon the weekly demand.
Sharman continues: “Participating in a virtual kids class should be as easy as watching a YouTube video and following along. Done correctly and timetabled intelligently, I think virtual classes can be a game changer for the children’s market.”
There is no need to send your instructors off on special training courses the moment a new type of class comes out. They simply need to be versed in the content being screened, and any member of staff could fill this role. This alone could save a centre thousands of pounds each year in training fees.”
Sharman adds: “There have also been studies done on club retention, which show that families who exercise together have far great rates of retention than those who don’t.”
So it really makes good business sense, he says, to attract families to your facility. While waiting for their kids, parents might be encouraged to try a work out for themselves, or spend more time and money in the catering areas.
“For leisure facilities that are already doing children’s programming well, virtual classes can grow their business rather than replace current content.
“If kids are visiting twice a week for football and swimming, a virtual class could tempt them to come a third time.
“For those sites who struggle with family content, virtual classes could offer a great kick start to attracting this market, at very little investment and ongoing cost.”
The new virtual offer that Sharman is working on – called iDEA – will bring a host of new activities for kids, from magic and card tricks, to martial arts and army bootcamp, and he feels that it’s really important that classes should appeal to all children’s tastes.
“Many kids today are not at all sporty, so operators should draw them in with other fun offers, like juggling, that don’t require any physical fitness or even special equipment, to be enjoyed. “It’s essential to engage kids physically, socially and mentally, because their long term wellbeing is dependent on all these needs being nurtured and developed,” he says.
“In doing so, facilities can make a valuable contribution to the health and social agenda, raise their profile in the community, increase their revenues and diversify their business at the same time.”
