Commercial Fitness Centres in Denmark: A Study on Development, Determinants of Provision and Substitution Effects

Abstract

The commercial fitness sector in Denmark has boomed over the last two decades. The number of for-profit fitness centres has risen from around 350 in the 2000s to more than 800 in 2018. This development indicates that significantly more Danes are now customers of commercial sport for all fitness programmes. In response to this growth, the non-profit sector in Denmark has started its own fitness activities, giving rise to debates about fair competition. In this paper, we aim to identify the determinants for the provision of for-profit fitness and potential substitution effects between non-profit and for-profit providers of sport for all leisure activities. By deploying regression modelling on cross-sectional data, we find that the presence of non-profit fitness centres does not seem to affect the provision of commercial ones. This indicates that, so far, non-profit and commercial sport for all leisure organisations in Denmark have supplemented each other to the benefit of overall sport participation.

Commercial Fitness Centres in Denmark: A Study on Development, Determinants of Provision and Substitution Effects