What cost-of-living crisis? The rise of boutique, luxury gyms

Harry Arnott’s gym membership went from $15 a week to just under $70 when he switched from a 24-hour fitness space to Christchurch’s IHF Health Club six months ago.

And Arnott, 25, strongly believes he is still getting value for money.

Fluffy, thirsty towels are abundant at no added expense. The bathrooms are clean, stylish, and stocked with body products from the premium brand Ashley and Co. Like-minded individuals mingle in the café lounge, which features wellness-focused food and drink. There’s a sauna and cold plunge pool for post-workout recovery.

Oh, that’s right, this place is about working out and fitness, so yes, there’s that too - personal trainers, group classes, weights, etc.

“It makes it a much more inviting place to be, somewhere that you actually want to go to rather than just being somewhere that you reluctantly go to so that you can work out,” says Arnott, a solicitor who is at the club every other day.

IHF Health Club is an example of a small but growing sector of the fitness industry in New Zealand and overseas, where offerings focus on experience, mental health, and physique. That growth is defying a cost-of-living crisis where tough economic times have many New Zealanders pulling back on luxury expenses.

While you can further your health for free by going to the park or using at-home workouts, boutique gyms are about more than exercise and are increasingly becoming a social place for younger generations.

There is no tight definition of what a boutique gym is, but Richard Beddie, the CEO of industry body Exercise New Zealand, describes them as smaller health clubs on the luxury end or a studio that might focus on a single exercise like Pilates with additional facilities such as a sauna, extravagant changing rooms, and social events. Either way, they tend to be more comprehensive than just fitness.

As the slice of the market is so small, there is no New Zealand-specific data on growth, but there is “firm anecdotal evidence” that boutique gyms are thriving, says Beddie.

Auckland’s Redroom is one of those examples. Its Pilates mat classes - as opposed to the reformer-style - often reach their 30-person capacity during peak times. The number far surpassed the predictions Redroom’s founder, Dominique Francis, detailed in a business report before the studio opened last year.

“So many people are craving a space where they can socialise that doesn’t revolve around eating and drinking. That is how we socialised up until now,” she says.

“We have built a community around people who have something in common. Their health is their priority.”

The primary focus of Redroom is Pilates, but it also offers yoga and HIIT (high-intensity interval training). The cherry on top is the red light therapy, a type of warm red light that stimulates cell repair and reduces inflammation for an anti-aging workout recovery. Like many boutique gyms, Redroom angles for customers who see a tight connection between fitness, mental health, and aging well.

A one-off class costs $35 plus an additional $15 for red light therapy. An unlimited membership costs just under $5000 a year.

Renee Rigden attends classes at Redroom. The 40-year-old nutritionist also goes to classes at nearby Sala, a reformer Pilates, yoga, and barre studio. Sala also has saunas.

Rigden primarily goes to Redroom for the workouts and recovery aspect. She doesn’t mind paying a premium to support a female-owned business and a space that is geared towards women.

“[The fitness industry] has always been traditionally for males, so it is nice to go to a gym that is primarily for females, even if males are welcome.”

Francis said some males do attend Redroom classes, but the large majority are women.

Each major city has a handful of boutique gyms, Beddie reckons. And people, especially those under 40, seem happy to pay for it. He pointed to research in the UK that showed young people would ditch alcohol before they gave up their gym membership.

“It's fair to say that there's a far greater awareness of the reasons to exercise beyond just body transformation than there ever has been.

“The biggest one, of course, is mental health. People say, ‘I feel better when I go to the gym. So for me, paying, whether it's $20, or $50 a week, is relatively cheap for your sanity kind of thing.”

In recent decades, big box gyms such as Les Mills or City Fitness typically had the same offerings for a similar price. Now, boutique gyms are setting themselves apart with higher levels of service, more human interactions, and a holistic offering, including a large social element and the recovery add-ons, says Beddie.

Dan Hood started what would become IHF Health Club more than ten years ago in Christchurch. The service component and attention to detail are so prominent in his operation that he sees the club as a “hotel without rooms" that also has a gym area. Laundry, with all those fluffy towels, is a big part of it, including a service that will clean your gym gear and return it neatly folded to your locker in time for your next workout.

The trend is large enough for the bigger gyms to respond. Les Mills, a stalwart of the New Zealand fitness industry for decades, recently added a boutique-style element to its Newmarket location in Auckland. It’s called the Mind Body Studio, and it focuses on reformer Pilates and yoga in a quiet, natural light-filled studio with wooden floors.

The venture has far surpassed the expectations of Les Mills CEO Brett Sutton. The waitlist for a class yesterday was over 100 people.

“That does beg a question of where to from here, so that planning is rapidly happening in the background in terms of which clubs will receive our next wave or Mind Body and or reformer studios.”