Business & Money | Wednesday 15 June, 2016 10:26 am |

The CEO of the first Saudi fitness chain Body Masters Mr. Wael Riad El Merhabi, unveiled that the Company had focused in the past two years on the development and renovation of most of its existing gyms. More than SAR 30 million was invested on renovating and upgrading 20 out of the 29 currently operating gyms across the Kingdom. 

He further revealed that the Company’s strategy, after the completion of the development and renovation plan, will focus on smart expansion. This will entail two areas; a focused and well planned expansion on one hand, and advanced service that keeps up with the latest global trends in fitness, on the other, which is lacking today in most of the gyms in the Kingdom.

Clarifying the concept of “smart” expansion; “we are not concerned about quantity, rather our primary focus is quality, and that is what matters for our subscribers. We don’t seek to have random expansion with the objective of opening the largest number of gyms in a short period of time, instead we focus on the number that makes us able to maintain the high quality, its continuous improvement, and that is what counts most for us”, he said.  

Mr. El Merhabi also announced that Body Masters’ plan is to reach 45 fitness gyms by 2017 in 20 different cities in Saudi Arabia. It is worth mentioning that Body Masters opened a gym in Hael early this year, and there are six other gyms under construction. He expects that these will be opened during this year in Jeddah, Tabuk, Najran, Hafr al-Batin, Riyadh and Medina, for a total of 8 new gyms in 2016.

He noted that Body Masters’ management has worked in the past two years to support and develop the Saudi youth managing these gyms and are in direct contact with the subscribers, as well as the development of the trainers through continuous training courses by local, international and government bodies. “Indeed we were the first to join the “certified gym trainer” program, supervised by local government bodies”, El Merhabi said. 

Body Masters’ CEO further noted that what the Company has been doing in the past two years in terms of service improvement and gyms’ development and renovation has made a paradigm shift, where the number of its active subscribers has doubled, proving the success of its Change strategy. “The primary objective of Body Masters is to provide the best service at the most competitive prices to make sport accessible to everyone” he said. 

It’s worth mentioning that Body Masters is the first fitness chain in the Kingdom, established in 1992 in Riyadh and then expanded to reach 29 gyms in 10 different cities across Saudi Arabia, in addition to the opening of 8 new gyms within 2016, of which 6 are under construction.