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Leisure Management -
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| Supplier showcase
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Opulent Wellness
CLIENT: Trump Hotel Collection, US
SUPPLIER: WTS International
Located in the heart of Chicago, US, alongside the Chicago River, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago welcomes guests into the lap of luxury. Within this 92-story residential tower, developed by Trump Organization, lies Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, with floors 14–27 encompassing the hotel.
The 2,140sq m (23,000sq ft) The Spa at Trump is on the 14th floor and offers active travellers and residents a well-balanced environment in which to enhance their wellbeing. Within the Spa at Trump, the health club offers cutting-edge CV equipment with individual TV monitors and iPod docking stations, and weight training equipment, all by Technogym.
The club’s layout provides users with breathtaking views of the city known as ‘The Heart of America’. In addition to the gym facilities, hotel guests and members can take advantage of experienced personal trainers, two spacious studios offering an extensive range of group and individual fitness classes, and a 23 x 7m heated swimming and lap lane pool overlooking the Chicago River. Men’s and women’s changing areas provide members and guests with complete personal amenities, deluge showers, and both steam and sauna facilities.
The Spa at Trump provides an exclusive membership through its signature Spa Attaché, which includes access to the Trump Health Club Chicago. Membership gives access to the gym, pool and group exercise classes, as well as 20 per cent off spa services (Monday–Thursday).
It also includes a new member PT session and Polar Body Age health assessment. Also on offer are some complimentary member services: a one-hour suit press and shoe shine, overnight workout laundry services, personal locker, towels and toiletries, and use of hairdryers, straighteners and curling irons. Complimentary workout attire is also available (shorts and T-shirt), as well as the loan of iPods and headphones.
As an invisible support structure, WTS International works with the Trump Hotel Collection to uphold the essence of its brand standards and vision for its guests/members in Chicago. In partnership with Trump Hotel Collection, WTS developed the conceptual vision for the health club by capturing and amplifying the hotel’s distinctive characteristics, thereby differentiating the facility from its competitors and forming a platform on which the promotional efforts could be built. In addition to the conceptual development, WTS provided design review services including assisting in the layout, location and characteristics of the health club.
Once the club had been designed to optimise the guest and member experience, WTS provided pre-opening services, defining the proper operational format for launch. Following the completion of all concept development, design review and pre-opening services, WTS now provides complete day-to-day operational services – including fitness programming and membership services and sales – for the Chicago club.
For more information: www.wtsinternational.com
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The pool at The Spa at Trump has a view over the Chicago River |
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SECONDARY REVENUE STREAM
CLIENT: David Lloyd Leisure
SUPPLIER: GRAVITY/Total Gym
David Lloyd Leisure (DLL) has recently launched GRAVITY Group Training at its club in Kensington, London, having installed four Total Gym GTS machines at the facility. Total Gym offers members an effective, functional, instructor-led workout that can be charged as either small group or one-to-one personal training.
This is the fourth DLL club to introduce Total Gym equipment, coinciding with launches at DLL locations in Luton and Worcester – each of these clubs also installing four Total Gym units – and following on from a pilot at DLL’s Chigwell club, where the equipment was installed in April 2012. With a comprehensive functional equipment offering on the gym floor already in place, DLL wanted to trial GRAVITY as a way of adding functional resistance training to the studio timetable.
The Chigwell club has already seen good returns on its investment, as well as high member satisfaction levels in response to the studio-based classes, which are charged as six-week courses. It has 77 members signed up to a GRAVITY programme, with 20 sessions timetabled each week.
GRAVITY’s functional programming can train sports-specific movements for better performance and is also extremely effective as a fat-burning and strengthening class – a blend that fits very well with the DLL member profile. By harnessing the user’s own bodyweight as resistance, a huge number of exercises can be performed, and difficulty can be adjusted to suit anyone from athletes to people with limited mobility. In many cases, these diverse groups can even join in the same class, simply varying the angle of the equipment’s glideboard to match their ability.
“Total Gym is a deceptive looking piece of equipment. I thought it would be quite tame compared to the intense full-body sessions I normally do, but within the 30-minute taster session I was starting to feel like I needed to sub out!” says Jason Sheard, sports manager at DLL Kensington. “The ease with which the Total Gym can be adjusted meant I didn’t even catch my breath between exercises. It’s an excellent piece of equipment that has to be tried to understand how good it is.”
The Kensington, Luton and Worcester clubs will use the same model as has proved successful at Chigwell. On top of monthly membership, members can choose from two packages: either six weeks of one hour a week, or six weeks of two 45-minute sessions each week.
“We’re always looking for ways to enhance our members’ experience, and GRAVITY Training at David Lloyd Chigwell has already proved very popular among our members,” says Rob Beale, head of sports, health and fitness at David Lloyd Leisure. “We’ve just had four more instructors trained up to deliver more GRAVITY sessions and offer more courses for members to sign up to. Rolling out the concept to our clubs in Kensington, Luton and Worcester was an easy decision.”
With GRAVITY programming available for sports-specific workouts, post-rehabilitation, high intensity interval training (HIIT), pilates and strength training, there’s huge scope for expanding the group class offering, as well as launching one-to-one PT sessions on the Total Gym equipment.
With Total Gym’s foldable design, four machines can be stored at the back of a studio with a footprint of just 0.5sq m and rolled out to transform the space into a GRAVITY Studio when needed.
For more information: www.gravityuk.net
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David Lloyd Leisure introduced Total Gym GTS machines to enhance its functional resistance training offer for members |
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| The glideboard angle is easily changed |
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BUDGET AT ITS BEST
CLIENT: easyGym
SUPPLIER: Precor
In just two years, low-cost health club operator easyGym has opened eight gyms in the UK, including a flagship site in London’s Oxford Street. A ninth site, in Tottenham, north London, is due to open in December.
With gyms already open in Slough, Wood Green, Birmingham, Southampton, Cardiff, West Croydon and Ilford – and another set to launch in autumn 2014 – easyGym has set out to bring new meaning to the term ‘budget gym’. Each site has been reconfigured to align with the brand’s premium low-cost model, as easyGym CEO Paul Lorimer-Wing explains: “Our philosophy has always been to provide a quality but affordable experience. Low-cost doesn’t mean basic. We strip out the frills to give great value, but still have Precor’s top of the range equipment, tasteful décor and quality fittings.
“Our strap line – and philosophy – is to give people the ‘freedom to do more’ and, although we can’t be everything to everyone, we can be a lot of things to a lot of people.”
The 2,414sq m (26,000sq ft) gym in London’s Oxford Street – which opened in June 2013 – is the operator’s largest, where the fitness area alone houses 25 per cent more equipment than the average easyGym. As well as 42 treadmills, 30 cross-trainers, 27 bikes and 14 Adaptive Motion Trainers (AMTs) – all from Precor’s Networked 880 Line with P80 consoles and Preva Networked Fitness – there are 10 Concept2 rowers, two StairMaster steppers and an 8.5m TRX frame.
Alongside this, a number of strength zones include a fixed resistance area with Precor Discovery Selectorised equipment, a more advanced section with 15 cable machines and Precor Discovery plate-loaded equipment, and a third large area for free weights.
Opened in August, Southampton offers another expansive gym floor – 1,950sq m (21,000sq ft) – with a range of Precor equipment. Meanwhile, existing clubs at Ilford and Slough are now benefiting from refurbishments, and a mixed martial arts area has been introduced in Croydon. Wood Green is also undergoing a refurb to include additional Precor Discovery plate-loaded stations, FTS Glides and Icarian Superbenches.
The majority of easyGym locations offer Precor’s Preva Media Package, which features on all cardio equipment and is free for the first month and then charged at £1.99 a month. Delivered via the P80 console in a format designed for the in-motion exerciser, the media package allows members to watch TV, browse the web, check emails and plug in their iPod. Only customers paying for the Preva Media Package have access.
Jez Whitling, sales director for Precor UK, says: “We’ve partnered with easyGym from the beginning, installing equipment with the Preva Media Package into its facilities. This functionality has enabled easyGym to buy top of the range Precor equipment and offer an unrivalled entertainment option, but still charge a low membership fee. Members can decide to pay a little extra, and this helps pay for the equipment investment.”
easyGym plans to grow its portfolio to 50 clubs in the next few years, and take the brand into Europe.
For more information: www.precor.com
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Precor has partnered with easyGym since its 2012 launch into the UK market, including the new Oxford Circus club (above) |
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| Members can try the Preva Media Package for free for one month |
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| Originally published in Health Club Management 2013 issue 11
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