Russia lost thousands of fitness clubs due to pandemic
According to Silina, by the end of 2021, 518,400 employees remained in the fitness business, employed in 7,800 clubs and gyms. Over the year, the industry’s revenues fell by almost 26 billion rubles.
“It was difficult to survive without losses, since the business has a high debt load, expensive and irreducible rental rates, as well as large social taxes from the wage fund. The fitness industry is human-intensive, as it requires a large number of employees to serve visitors to health and fitness facilities. Wages account for 30-40% of the total turnover, ”she said.
Prospects for 2022
In 2022, one of the trends may become public-private partnerships. She said that nowadays, a huge number of public health and fitness facilities are ineffective. But by leveraging the resource of an IT industry that possesses knowledge, technology, and successful business models, this can change.
“These objects could become economically beneficial to both parties. By transferring a part of such enterprises to entrepreneurs, the state can reduce the cost of operation, and the industry can get the opportunity to develop on more favorable terms, ”Silina explained.
According to her, the expenditures of local budgets for the operation of sports facilities total 60 billion rubles a year.
Another possible trend is the collaboration of medicine and fitness in terms of accompanying patients with coronavirus, prevention and recovery of those who have recovered. Also, the fitness community asked the Ministry of Health to include fitness services in VHI policies and to simplify the obtaining of medical licenses for clubs. This will help expand the industry market and motivate citizens to a healthy lifestyle. Because of the pandemic, people began to come to fitness clubs not for a beautiful body, in order to restore health, increase immunity, Silina said.
The head of the national fitness community told what additional support the industry needs from the state in 2022:
- reduction of insurance premiums to 15% for the entire salary fund;
- support measures for commercial property owners providing rental discounts;
- modernization of SanPiN for the industry;
- cashback programs by analogy with the tourism sector;
- tax deduction for companies whose employees are engaged in fitness;
- cheap non-refundable rates for fitness passes – just like in the aviation industry.
Earlier, Elena Silina proposed to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to introduce a moratorium on fines until January 1, 2023, to cancel tax inspections until the end of 2023, and to extend the subsidy for disinfection and prevention of the spread of coronavirus until December 2022. She stressed that during the restrictions, the clubs need government support.
At the November lockdown, Russian certification owners asked landlords to reduce their rent by 50% by the end of the year. In regions where the work of physical education centers was banned due to a lockdown, the business wants to completely cancel the fee. More than 20 industry representatives have signed the appeal to landlords and the government. Earlier it was reported that Russian fitness clubs will lose about 3.67 billion rubles in revenue for the non-working week from October 30 to November 7.
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