The establishment of Technogym Emirates LLC – a regional distribution hub for the Italian fitness and wellness company – has brought fresh expertise to the region’s fitness industry. We speak to managing director Christian Dietrich, previously sales director for Technogym Benelux, about the equipment supplier’s role in moving the Middle East health club sector forward.
How does the health and fitness industry in the Middle East compare to the market in Europe?
Clubs that offer members some kind of social commitment get the best retention.
The industry in the Middle East is basically in its baby shoes. The first few professional gyms are starting to emerge, and I consider Fitness First to be the one that operates the way we know it.
To date, it is a completely hotel/leisure driven industry. The hotels here are the trendsetters, whereas in Europe it is the clubs leading the industry and the hotels following. So the leaders here are different kinds of people: hotel people.
The similarity is that both here and at home, operators look to us and other suppliers to educate them. I think these must be the questions we hear most often: ‘How can I make the next step? What do you have that will make my club the first or the best?’
What is the state of public health in the United Arab Emirates?
The health problems in the UAE are at least the same as they are in Europe. We talk to all kinds of parties at the top level and without exception they tell us we have a health problem on its way or that it’s here already. We need to get people moving. They are aware of the problem; they are working on it, but they are at the beginning.
How do you work with health club operators in the Middle East?
It’s a very interesting process, because here we can still shape the industry, which is fantastic. One thing we often say is that if you innovate, you have to educate. Operators and consumers want new things in fitness, but if nobody educates them as to what to do with it, people just won’t get on the kit.
In this market, people really want to work with someone they can trust. They don’t like a supplier to just come in and sell them something. And if you go into the medical and rehab markets – as we are doing with our Kinesis product – trust becomes even more important; being fit and healthy becomes more serious.
What are the issues with recruiting staff for the industry?
I’d say personnel almost make or break a club. Good help is hard to find, and I’m afraid staff turnover is very high too, which means all the knowledge goes. A lot of our clients here ask us to train their staff, and getting certain education standards guaranteed is one of the things I’ll be focused on at Technogym Emirates. Staff are just not getting beyond that level of ‘Hi, how are you? Here’s the towel’.
That is the thing I don’t understand about the industry. If I go and join a tennis club, I get a membership card and lessons. With golf, most of the time you can’t go on the golf course until you know what you’re doing. Fitness is not that cheap, but people join, get a membership and don’t really learn anything. This is the point we’re trying to get across to operators, and I think the market is responding to it.
How do you see the fitness industry developing in the region?
I think there is a need for standalone health clubs. We try and encourage operators to come and build the market here. Obviously, we have good contacts with international operators, and we welcome them coming in. From a strategic level, it’s important to us.
People don’t like just working out. Clubs that offer some kind of social commitment get the best retention; group exercise usually helps a lot as we’ve seen in Europe.
We can take it to a much higher level here because Dubai is, after all, an indoor place for several months of the year. I do believe in health clubs as destinations – even more so in Dubai.
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