Coronavirus: Hong Kong gym owners ‘losing hope’ as tough Covid-19 restrictions threaten more than 150 fitness outlets across the city
- ‘Every time I hear of another gym closing, my heart sinks,’ Primal Fitness trainer Sarah Millson says
- ‘Hong Kong fitness industry needs rental relief now’, industry group Save HK Fitness insists
Two years of Covid-19 restrictions have left more than 150 Hong Kong gyms facing the grim reality of closing their doors for good, with calls for “rental relief now” from industry group Save HK Fitness.
On Tuesday, Fitness First was the second major gym franchise after Goji Fitness to wind up, leaving some 10,000 members without a gym and more than 100 employees without work.
But it’s not just forced closures that are biting hard. With expats leaving Hong Kong in record numbers, rebuilding a client base is becoming harder. Gym owners say they are helpless and left at the mercy of confusing, knee-jerk policy decisions.
“I don’t understand why it’s still like this,” Marc Guyon, founder at MGK Fight Club in Discovery Bay, said. “Singapore has been able to keep their gyms open. ‘Zero Covid’ is killing Hong Kong. It’s a big mistake. Gym owners are losing hope.”
All gyms across the city have been closed since early January. Insiders admit the industry is now “scrambling” to maintain some sort of income.
“We are not like restaurants, we can’t do takeaways or open for lunch,” Guyon added. “We can’t do anything. Some gym owners I know have been doing outdoor classes, but they are now being shut down by police.
“I’m lucky I have two to three people who kept personal training classes, that helps to pay my staff, but it’s not enough to pay the rent.”
Guyon is not alone in voicing his frustrations about the city’s strict Covid-19 policy. Tricia Yap, founder of Limitless Health and part of the Save HK Fitness industry initiative said many of the group’s members have similar concerns.
“We need rental relief now. Subsidies are insufficient, and don’t even cover freelance coaches in our industry either,” Yap said. “After lockdowns, we lost students, not to mention the current exodus of people means that we’re also losing clients daily.
“Most landlords do not care – some are increasing rents instead of decreasing or providing free rental for a certain period, or largely discounted rental. They need to legislate rental relief for all businesses closed by the government before we lose the majority of the SMEs in Hong Kong.”
Billy Tam is a veteran of the Hong Kong fitness industry, operating the Lights Out and Warrior Hong Kong brands. For two years, Tam has shifted his businesses into new areas, developing fitness content, and operating classes on Zoom and outdoors, in addition to one-on-one training sessions. But as the closures drag on, Tam said it has become increasingly difficult to generate meaningful revenue.
“The situation is very dire for us. It’s been going on for a few years and we’re now into the fifth lockdown,” he said.
“We are helpless as an industry. We don’t have a strong enough voice to get our point across. It just feels like a blanket move on the industry without understanding the nuances of how we operate.”
With government policy constantly changing, Tam said one of the bigger problems during the latest lockdown has been a lack of understanding about what is legal.
“There’s a grey area of what is legal, a lot of the authorities don’t even know themselves,” Tam said. “There is a big disconnect between top policymaking bureaucrats all the way down to frontline authorities. That has been a consistent theme.”
Sarah Millson, a personal trainer at Primal Fitness, is another who feels that prolonged closures are hurting the industry.
“Gyms were originally to be included in the vaccine pass scheme,” Millson said. “If you look at the people who have sadly passed away during this fifth wave, the majority are elderly and unvaccinated, as well as a range of people who were terminally ill. These are not clientele of fitness centres.
“Every time I hear of another gym closing, my heart sinks. At a time when we all need to focus on our health and fitness, we’re seeing our industry crumble.
“Subsidies help but they only go so far. At Primal Fitness, we’ve found it hard to grow our membership during the times we’ve been open because there’s so much uncertainty in Hong Kong.
“I would like the government to share an exit plan that gives businesses a firm view of the future so that we can plan ahead and work towards an end point.”
Yap echoed the calls for greater clarity from the Hong Kong government.
“We would like to also appeal that gyms should not be in the same category as nightclubs and bars,” she said.
“SafeFit100 was created to align with the government’s Covid fight. Under this group, gyms are kept sanitised multiple times a day with hygiene stations, air purifiers installed, staff fully vaccinated, partitions and other social distancing measures in place.
“Moreover, we’re all part of the vaccine passport – so why can’t we also operate during daytime hours like restaurants?”
