Small, high-end fitness studios witness big boom

BEIJING - Yu Jing, an office worker in Beijing, takes an expensive approach to fitness.

She gave up a 1,000-square-meter gym with an annual fee of 2,000 yuan ($291), and paid 9,000 yuan for 36 one-hour courses in a fitness studio located in a three-bedroom apartment outside the city's Third Ring Road.

"It is not a bargain, but I think the exercise will be more effective under the guidance of a private coach," said the 35-year-old.

The Aosheng Fitness Training Base, with an area of only 150 square meters, opened in March and has about 60 members, according to Jin Long, a 27-year-old retired wrestler and founder of the studio. The studio has seven coaches, all retired wrestlers from North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The studio is already profitable, as each member pays about 10,000 yuan for their courses, said Jin, who is busy searching for an apartment for a second studio. Jin came to Beijing five years ago, working as a fitness coach.

"Traditional fitness clubs concentrate more on sales and focus less on customer experience and services," Jin said. "Our studio focuses on customers and bodybuilding results, which is the future direction of the industry."

As China's middle-class population is on the rise, small but more expensive studios like Jin's are sprouting up across the country.

When Tang Lin, founder of i Fitness Space, set up his first studio in Beijing five years ago, there were roughly 20 such studios in Beijing. Now there are more than 1,500 in the city listed on online city-guide Dianping.

"Chinese people are not only paying more attention to their health but also are more willing to pay for better experiences," said Tang, adding that those born in the 1970s and 1980s are his main client base.

Chinese people will spend about 1 trillion yuan on sports this year, said Ouyang Li, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission, at a news conference in August.

"The expansion of the high-end consumption population and upgrade of people's consumption demand is contributing to the rapid development of private fitness studios in China," said Yi Jiandong, a sports economy expert with Peking University's National School of Development.

The coach training business is also becoming more lucrative.

The number of trainees of Saipu Fitness Institute, the only publicly listed and leading fitness training organization in China, is expected to reach 40,000 this year, according to Zhao Siyu, assistant president of Saipu Investment Co Ltd.

Saipu reaped 259 million yuan in sales revenue in the first half of this year, up 78 percent year-on-year. Its net profit increased by 81 percent to 72.38 million yuan during the same period, according to its half-yearly report, which attributed the growth to the rising number of trainees.

"Saipu has been expanding the scale of its five schools in Beijing and Shenzhen, and a new school in Shanghai is opening soon," said Zhao, adding that the company is also engaged in sports education and community fitness.

"The sports industry has entered an era of rapid growth as the per capita GDP of China has now exceeded $8,500 and people's demand for sports has risen," said Jiang Xiaojuan, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Capital is also pouring into the sports sector. In July, online fitness company Keep Inc raised $127 million in its D-round financing.

The Chinese government is also aiming high for the sports sector to boost the economy. A recent guideline released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's cabinet, called for creating new business models for sports consumption with great demand potential.

As the fitness industry flourishes, Yi Jiandong hopes there will be an improvement in its professionalism and sports-science level.

A shortage of talent is also a big headache, according to Tang Lin. Sports teachers, coaches and researchers that China's sports institutions are nurturing still lag behind, he said.

Tang suggested Chinese universities create fitness coaching majors that cover subjects including sports and fitness psychology.