Virgin Active opens new, low-cost gym

Virgin Active opens new, low-cost gym

VIRGIN Active has opened its second health club in Soweto after the huge success of the first one it opened in the area four years ago.

A Virgin Active Red opened in Jabulani Mall, Soweto, at the weekend, looking to cater for a broader range of South Africans, including people wanting to get the essentials from their gym experience but for a cheaper price than other gyms, according to Virgin Active SA MD Ross Faragher-Thomas.

Virgin opened its first full service club in Soweto in Maponya Mall in 2011 and that gym is among its best performing health clubs.

“Soweto is ready for a new and contemporary concept in health clubs especially geared towards a young, energetic and fitness conscious generation. We expect to see strong growth from the rollout of further Red clubs across SA. Our club opening pipeline in SA in the medium term is in the order of eight to 10 clubs per year,” Mr Faragher-Thomas said on Friday.

The Virgin Active Red series is a value gym product that has fewer features than full service gyms but is designed to attract people who want to join a gym but at a lower cost than the full-service gyms.

The announcement came soon after investment group Brait acquired a majority 80% stake in Virgin Active for £682m. This investment cancelled the gym chain’s plans to list separately on the JSE.

Brait CEO John Gnodde said in April that the deal would help expand Virgin Active’s network of health clubs in the Asia-Pacific region beyond Singapore and Thailand.

The Virgin Group, originally led by British billionaire Richard Branson, acquired the ailing Health & Racquet Club chain in 2001 and turned it into Virgin Active SA. It had managed clubs in the UK since 1999.

A number of smaller gym chains are opening up in SA, riding off a larger group of consumers buying health foods each month and committing time to exercise.

Go Health, Viva Gym and City Rock are just three new gym groups in SA.

Virgin’s Red series competes with some of the lower-cost offerings of the new gyms.

Virgin is opening new clubs quickly in order to spread its offering across the country.

This year so far, Virgin Active has opened one full-service club in Dainfern, Johannesburg, and two Virgin Active Red clubs, one in Pretoria and in Jabulani in Soweto.

Eight more clubs are expected to open by the end of December. These will be six full-service clubs and two more Virgin Active Red clubs.