Romanians annually leave 270-330m euros in fitness centres

On a still fledgling market, Romanians annually leave around 270-330m euros in fitness studios, according to ZF's calculations taking into account the fact that only four in 100 Romanians go to a fitness studio each month, according to a European survey, and a Romanian on average spends around 25-30 euros monthly for a subscription.
Romania's fitness studio market started shaping up in early 2000, when, besides studios opened on the ground floors of blocks of apartments and private clubs developed by independent entrepreneurs, international operators made inroads. But massive investments in this market have been operated in the past three years, when, according to a ZF estimate, taking into account values announced by the main players, they have reached around 15m euros.
"In 2008, around 600 fitness companies were registered with the Trade Registry, of which half were not active. I estimate around 500 studios abiding by some standards are currently operational in Romania. These businesses come and go. There are few studios enduring three years and this happens because of the bad management," says Cezar Gregoriev, founder of Swedish Business Club, a company specialising in consulting services for the opening of fitness studios and sales of fitness equipment.