No abstract

The fitness sector is a growing industry worldwide. Its continued implementation of business models makes it an attractive market to study. Precisely, the low-cost model has become popular in countries such as Spain for which the study of variables that could influence one of the biggest problems in this industry, customer loyalty is of interest to investigators. Therefore, this work has as its objective to analyze possible differences between service convenience, perceived value, and satisfaction with the characteristics of clients of low-cost fitness center, and to determine if there is a relationship with client loyalty. The sample consisted of 763 clients (381 women and 382 men). A questionnaire to measures the service convenience, perceived value, satisfaction, and future behavior intentions or loyalty was adopted. Scales from similar studies were implemented these being valid and reliable instruments. The study offers a descriptives results, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, t-Student, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression. Results demonstrate significant differences with service convenience for gender, age, and length of time it takes to commute to the fitness center. Furthermore, there was a positive relationship among all variables, with loyalty resulting as the strongest relationship followed by satisfaction then service convenience. The findings of this study brings an understanding regarding the reality of the low-cost fitness center consumer which could possibly be extrapolated to other countries with an emerging fitness industry.

Debido al incremento en el número de instalaciones y clientes, los centros de fitness están siendo examinados para comprender el comportamiento del consumidor que asiste a estas organizaciones deportivas. Por ello, el objetivo de esta investigación fue analizar si existían diferencias de gasto económico en base al perfil y a la fidelidad de clientes en centros de fitness low-cost. La muestra se compuso de 8462 clientes de los que el 50.9% (<em>n</em>=4303) fueron mujeresy el 49.1% (<em>n</em>=4159) hombres. Se realizaron análisis descriptivos y de la varianza para dar respuesta al objetivo. Los principales resultados indican que existen diferencias significativas en cuanto al gasto económico según el género, la edad, la permanencia en la organización y las intenciones de comportamiento medidas con el Net Promoter Score. Estos hallazgos son de especial relevancia ya que favorecen el conocimiento detallado de los clientes, y de cuáles son las variables que se deberían gestionar adecuadamente para aumentar el gasto.