Leisure Connection, the fitness and health contract management company, announces that Neil King will join the business as its Managing Director. He is currently Commercial Director for Sport & Leisure Management Limited (“SLM”), which trades under the highly successful brand “Everyone Active”. Well known in the health and fitness industry; Neil King brings 22 years [...]
Leisure Connection bucks swimming trend
Leisure Connection yet again bucks the market trend and reports a growth in swimming, despite Sport England’s recent Active People survey of 28 major sports, which shows that, on average, public participation has fallen over the past four years.
- The survey of 166,000 people by the agency, which funds grass-roots sport, examined the number of adults participating in at least half an hour of moderate exercise in each of the various sports
- It found major falls in participation in some of Britain’s most popular sports including swimming, football and tennis
- Leisure Connection, the private operator of more than 40 public access and private pools across the UK reports participation in swimming has in fact risen amongst adults across its estate
- It’s thought that one in five people can’t swim or lack confidence in water
- Leisure Connection has therefore launched a number of swimming lesson programmes for adults, costing as little as £3.00 per session
- Leisure Connection’s adult swim programme has grown by a massive 200% in 2011
- This success will be built upon going into 2012 to ensure it meets the needs of the local community
Quotations:
National Swimming Manager at Leisure Connection – Tara Stroud says: The Sport England Active People report is interesting and it’s sad to see so many sports seeing a drop in participation. However, Leisure Connection pools are seeing a rise in adult participation, which we attribute to innovative pool programming and launching more accessible swimming opportunities to our communities. Like for like casual swimming usage figures are up 16% during the period between October – December 2011. There are more than 26,000 individuals learning to swim with us each week and more than 500 adults having private lessons.
Tara continues: By developing the swimming programming to make it more customer friendly and promote more variety Leisure Connection has increased user participation by an average of 33%.