The State of Fitness Industry in Australia - Case Study Example

A REPORT TO INVESTIGATE THE STATE OF FITNESS INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA A report to investigate the state of fitness industry in Australia Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 02, 11, 2011 Table of Content 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Literature review 2 2.1 Problem statement 2 2.2 Historical context 2 2.3 Research literature on the problem 4 3.0 Findings 5 4.0 Discussion and conclusion 7 5.0 Reference List 9 1.0 Introduction Australia, with a history of commendable sporting achievements, fitness industry is probably the most endowed with immense formidable infrastructure as of late, equally compared to none across the globe. This being the main supporter of sporting fraternity, it suffices to make it clear that they not only ensure high caliber sporting competitiveness but also cuts across lifestyle related health issues with a vision of ensuring obesity amongst children seeking health care is checked, and ensuring cardiac problems in the middle aged and the elderly is checked too. Sporting industry has of late been taken serious, not because of the jobs on offer but also because of other important issues that are beneficial to the participants and those who love it (Walker et al. 2005). Despites the small population, the country has four major leagues that ensures professionalism amongst sporting men, these commands significant media coverage (Shilbury et al. 2006), the leagues are the Australian Football League (AFL), the National Basketball League (NBL), the National Rugby League (NRL), and the National Soccer League (NSL). These leagues have in the past produced a strong national team that has competed internationally for major sporting events. Different components of sporting fraternity ensure the facility is fully operational and upbeat in its mandate. These are related to tourism, coaching, broadcasting, health and fitness, retail and betting and facility management. This report ascertains the effects of all health and fitness facility being taken up by the government in an attempt to foster exercise by making it compulsory for all the Australians to be physically fit, besides laying down guidelines that would ensure all Australia exercises regardless of their age differences by implementing the infamous policy ‘fitness for all’ (Stewart et al., 2005). 2.0 Literature review 2.1 Problem statement For sporting activities to flourish in Australia certain facets needs to be put in place and ensured fully operational. The fitness section has not been fully evaluated and documented; currently there are no records for the number of people actively involved in such facilities, despites having so many fitness facilities across the entire country. It was therefore important to carry out a study in finding out the perception of people on the proposal that the government takes up all the fitness facilities in the country whether local, national, club based or owned by individuals. In so doing it would easily fund and enforce the exercising activities for all the citizens regardless of age under the policy of ‘fitness for all’ (Skinner, Zakus & Cowell 2008). 2.2 Historical context The past five or so decades has seen the number and array of government policies for sports development related activities increasing in major European countries Australia inclusive (Bob et al,. 2004). This has since evolutionalized the fitness facilities meant to shape and prepare athletes for major sporting events to take a new twist. The trajectory of sports development as well may have varying sporting category but there has been a strong commonality cutting across a wide range of diverse policy areas such as health, social inclusion, social development, economic development and elite sporting success (Bob et al., 2004). Australia sport activities and policies have focused on promotion of sports for all its citizens (Costa et al., 2006). A consistent approach to supporting and developing opportunities for all Australia to participate in sport has resulted in achieving the much unexpected participatory level largely admired and envied by other countries (Shilbury 2000). With a long history of sporting activities that are club based, the current system has taken shape because of the government involvement and investing in sporting infrastructures and programming. Prior to the period in the year 1972, the federal government had little concern in the citizens increased leisure time, active participation in neither sports nor development of quality international athletes. All these have since changed. It now puts more concern in these elements having realized the potential in stored. So far, the sporting facilities in fitness and health have been commercialized, they are also on the rise (Australian Sports Commission 2007) of late the industry has become stable and confidence in both business and the role to a future health promoter of the Australia population (Sandy, Sloane & Rosentraub 2004). Fitness facilities across Australia are mostly club based, others are owned by individuals, communities, schools and a few by the government. The facility managers ensure they provide good experience to their clients, with a view of offering something different so as to retain those (Shilbury et al., 2006), they achieve this by recruiting. The industry has grown in club numbers, growth in membership in all the sectors of the club market. It also invests in training its staffs as well as buying state of art equipments. It was projected that the involvement of the people in exercise physiology would largely depend on the government initiative to come up with policies and laws that ensures all the people are actively involved in this practice (Green 2005). The establishment of fitness Australia has ensured that the industry is professionalized, with excellent customer care and standards of services being elevated (Costa et al., 2006). This blog partners with other organizations to provide information and support. For instance Performax produces apparels for the sporting men, Next Telcom provides landline billing, Tax exemption takes care of fitness centre membership and personal training services while partnering with life fitness has enabled it to engage with Delloite Touche Tohmatsu limited who ensures a level of professionalism and independence that would more likely influence government policy makers. However, programs ensuring age groups like the elderly and the obese children are not clear cut, such people puts more pressure on the health facility for conditions that can easily be prevented. If the government lays down policies after acquiring most if not all fitness facilities, then Australia would one day wake up to a physically fit nation. If Australia’s sporting success was to be weighed on a scale then fitness capacity would take a lion’s share, as far as contributing is concerned, Rugby sport for instance consumes a lot of elite training capacity and has constantly produced commendable results (Bloomfield 2003). 2.3 Research literature on the problem Just recently, unprecedented results were given by a survey done to investigate the inaugural Australian fitness fraternity. It was proposed that sports management in Australia needs to be seriously looked into, and that the government needed to jet more funding to the already existing sporting facilities instead of creating some additional. (Green 2005; Masteralexis et al., 2009). Community strength lies in sporting activities, their strength therefore largely if not entirely would ensure government policies and initiatives to sure all the locals across the entire nation are given an equal opportunity to exercise into fitness. These fitness facilities would also be used as therapeutics to the obese children who would have otherwise not gotten an easy access to such facilities; the elderly too would have such an opportune to better their musculature (Anderson 2009). It was largely expected that once the government takes full control of fitness facilities, there would be networking amongst them all and synchronize their effectiveness in what they offer (Green 2005). Biasness as far as media coverage would also be eliminated since all the facilities would be equated equally for all the facilities whether supporting action sport or not (Bennett et al.,. 2006). The state also anticipated that by taking over full control of these facilities, the level of sportsmanship would increase and go far beyond her competitors in major international games (Shilbury et al., 2006; Masteralexis et al. 2009). 3.0 Findings A retrospective study was conducted to find out from the available literatures, the state of fitness facilities in Australia, this involved collecting and examining the available secondary data earlier on collected and analyzed on fitness facilities, these were compared with the current situation, in terms of how far is the government willing to ensure Australians are physically fit, what policies have been formulated for the same and what the government intends to attain in mainstreaming this sporting sector. The materials examined were books, articles, journals, and other published materials with relevant fitness facilities and conditions. These sets of data gave a major trend and future indications of what is expected in the industry. The estimate that Australia has a total of five hundred, or more, fitness centers across the entire country gives a strong indicator of how the sector is moving quickly and taking shape at an alarming rate, though there could be some additional new centre these figure are estimates (Costa et al., 2006). These documented facilities were found to vary in number according to their types, where 20% were found to be individually owned, 30% were club- based, and 10% were community based the remaining 40% were national fitness centre. Most of the studies from these literatures had been done prospective (Bennett et al., 2006). Most of these studies had been administered with questionnaires to ensure easy administration and information acquisition. These materials for data capture were prepared with open ended as well as simple questions (Bennett, Henson & Zhang 2003). From the literature search and their analysis , it was clear that a larger proportion of facility users, about 81% believed that if the government was to takes over the ownership of these sporting component then it would subsidize their subscription fee, lay down better life insurance cover for minor and major accidents within the premises, improve the already better services on offer, encourage the facilities to compete for awards amongst themselves, reduce the pressure on health facilities due to preventable conditions related to lifestyle like obesity and heart diseases and attract many people to the facilities (Bennette et al., 2006). They also felt it was a good a idea for the policy of ‘fitness for all’ to be implemented, but this was highly disputed by those who owned and managed these facilities with a perfect 100% declining to that offer; about 79% of Australians interviewed believed that exercise ought to be part of their culture (Bloomfield 2003). Embracing exercise was a major aspect of their well being both emotionally and physically, but thought it was too soon for the government to implement such policies without consulting the relevant stakeholders. A portion of non facility users (75%) had different views. They believed the government would be going errant against the citizens by enforcing a compulsory exercise; voluntary practice was what they proposed. Of this proportion 38% preferred that the fitness facilities be schools oriented- so that the habit is natured at much an earlier age, while 37% were against the whole idea without specifically giving any reason whatsoever. The remaining 25% of the latter felt the government was taking the right course, and that the policy ought to be fully implemented. Amongst the correspondents, age groups played a major role in the kind of response received. A majority of youth had no problem with the policy, but those above 40 years gave differing opinion (Kellett & Russell 2009). Other suggestion from the literatures have different opinion, 51% felt the government should just provide funding to support this sporting ingredient and leave the management and ownership to those who have been running them. While 23% proposed that the government ought to increase the number of its own fitness facility and should not bother with either the community based, club-based or the individual owned fitness facilities. While 19% felt that the government would only help the industry by taking over the management yet leave the ownership be as before (Shilbury et al., 2006). Better still a larger proportion, 68% still feels that the current state is fine and therefore should not be interfered with (Shilbury et al., 2006) This cluster had a different opinion in that the policy could have been channeled towards another fraternity of neglected sporting activity. The advocacy for a voluntary fitness rather than making it mandatory to every people scored immensely, approximately, 81% of all the data collected from an initial case study were against a compulsory fitness activity (Costa et al., 2006). Almost half of all literature material suggested that the policy of fitness for all be age specific. Those within the age bracket of 18 and 27 years were largely mentioned as the best group to be made to exercise a lot. These findings were compared with other findings initially carried out on several other policies of sporting activities and the correspondences were not any marginally different (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006). 4.0 Discussion and conclusion From the above analysis, it is evident that a majority of Australians are involved in physical exercise. However, a segment of a few others do not appreciate the importance of these fitness facilities, it could be due to ignorance or lack of interest, the interest of the state in promoting a healthy and physically fit nation is long overdue. The numerous health and fitness facilities dispersed across the entire country is a true reflection, that the industry has peaked at an alarming rate and hence the interest of the government to take the monopoly through policy initiation. Harmonization of such facilities would provide equal opportunity as far as tourism is concerned and most importantly, in job creation (Sandy, Sloane & Rosentraub 2004). The government ought to have consulted widely with all the stakeholders managing and owning these fitness facilities before rushing into wanting to monopolize them by buying them all. It emerged from literatures that the majority of people supporting this act were those involved actively in one way or the other in sporting activities (Green 2005) However, the facilities are not only being used by sportsmen, but also the health experts have been recommending exercise to some individuals with health conditions relating to lifestyles issues, like obesity amongst children and cardiac conditions amongst the elderly. Such conditions have had an effect on the Australia health care system. The philosophy ‘fitness for all’ realized the immense contribution of such facilities in helping to curb these preventable disease conditions. The need to enforce exercise could have been a noble idea, what lacked was the unanimity in the thought of mind for all the involved parties, equally funding the facilities as suggested by a few others could have worked as well. Taking full control would not mean that the cherished goal would be fast tracked. The government could as well look into the idea of starting and initiating the program at school level, so that the youth are inducted into physical activities at an early age. All these suggestions were equally sensible in the sense that a society has to look into the divergent needs of her people. 5.0 Reference List Anderson, ED 2009 ‘The Maintenance of Masculinity among the Stakeholders of Sport’, Sport Management Review, vol.12, no.1, pp. 3-14. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006, Involvement in organised sport and physical activity, Australia, April 2001 (Catalogue No. 6285.0) Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia. Australian Ssports Commission 2007 NSO Funding 2006/7. Available from: < http://www.ausport.gov.au/funding/nationalsports.asp > . [1 November 2011]. Bennett,G, Henson,RK & Zhang, J 2003 ‘Generation Y’s perceptions of the action sports industry segment’. Journal of Sport Management, vol.17, no.2, pp. 95–115. Bennett, G, Sagas, M & Dees, W 2006, ‘Media preferences of action sports consumers: Differences between Generation X and Y’, Sport Marketing Quarterley, vol.15, no.1, pp.40–49. Bloomfield, J 2003, ‘Australia’s Sporting Success: The Inside Story, University of NSW Press. Sydney, NSW, Australia. Costa, CA, Chalip, L, Green, B & Simes, C 2006, ‘Reconsidering the Role of Training in Event Volunteers' Satisfaction’, Sport Management Review, vol. 9, no. 2, pp.165-182.   Green, BC 2005, ‘Building sport programs to optimize athlete recruitment, retention, and transition: Toward a normative theory of sport development’, Journal of Sport Management, vol.19, no. 3, pp. 233–253. Kellett, P & Russell, R 2009, ‘A comparison between mainstream and action sport industries in Australia: A case study of the skateboarding cluster’, Sport Management Review, vol.12, no.2, pp. 66–78. Masteralexis, LP, Barr, CA, & Hums, MA 2009, Principles and Practice of Sport Management, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA. Sandy, R, Sloane, PJ & Rosentraub, MS 2004, The Economics of Sport: An International Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, New York Shilbury, D 2000 ‘Considering future sport delivery systems’, Sport Management Review, vol. 3, no.1, pp. 199–221. Shilbury D, Deane, J & Kellett, P 2006, Sport Management in Australia: An Organisational Overview, Strategic Sport Management, Bentleigh, Victoria, Australia. . Skinner,J, Zakus, D & Cowell J 2008, ‘Development through Sport: Building Social Capital in Disadvantaged Communities’, Sport Management Review, vol.11, no.3, pp. 253-275. Stewart, B et al., 2005, Australian sport: Better by design? The evolution of Australian sport policy. Routledge, London. Walker, H, Soroka, M & Kellett, P 2005, The Profit-Driven Action Sport Industry working Within the Not-For-Profit Australian Sport System: The Case of Freestyle BM Australia and the Australian Sports Commission, 2nd Australasian Nonprofit and Social Marketing Conference, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia. Read More