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Fitness business
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Tempted to invest on a Cameron Diaz
figure?
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While the world economy struggles to get back
on its feet, people here in the Philippines seemed to have
found a better way of coping and that is through physical
fitness. Notice the glossy covers of the local magazines flaunting
the revealing bodies of movie stars. The men usually pose
to reveal 6-pack abs with unbuttoned shirts, or with no shirt
at all. And what was once the turf for men, the gym has also
become a habitué of women whose icons of a nice body
have graduated from the typical 70s image of the “coca-cola
body” to the millennium image of Lara Croft – lean
and mean. Women also want a share of those rippled tummies
and chiseled arms, so to speak.
Last June 28, Charlie’s Angels II was
simultaneously shown nationwide in Philippine theatres. After
the movie, it was not surprising to hear some women say they
were going to work out hard to have a body like that of Cameron
Diaz. Well, the “Angels” obviously showed a physical
form that suggests this-is-a-product-of-gym.
In reality, women are now equally engaged
in extreme sports that only men used to dominate before, like
wall climbing, mountain biking, and rappelling.
There’s a new craze in town though. It’s
an old sport that seemed to have been revived here in the
country and is popular among the yuppies who need a healthy
action after work. Badminton is it. Men and women are buying
racquets and frequenting courts in order to sweat it out for
an hour or two. Warehouses have been converted into badminton
courts. Each day, new players show up in the scene.
Bottomline is, where there lies a fever of
some sort, comes an opportunity for business. Think about
a small property you might have left idle here. It might just
have the space to accommodate a badminton court. At present,
court rental averages P100 per hour in the province and P250
per hour in Metro Manila. People go and play Mondays to Fridays.
Badminton equipment and accessories are also
spiking up the sales of sports shops. The most popular brands
for badminton racquets are Yonex from Japan, and Carlton from
the US. It is striking to note, however, that sports apparel
stores like Nike and Adidas mostly carry items that are for
the usual games like basketball, running, and tennis. There
has been no store dedicated solely to selling badminton apparel
and accessories. If you have the entrepreneurial spirit in
you, this is one opportunity to be able to supply badminton
sporting goods in the Philippines as a number of good brands
like Yonex come from Japan.
 On
the other side of the coin lie two other forms of exercise
that have also grown popular here in the country: Pilates
and kickboxing. For these two, all you need is a fairly huge
room with wooden floor, good but inexpensive lighting, a wall-to-wall
mirror, and a good trainer. Investment is cheap. With a good
marketing person to sell your Pilates and kickboxing studio,
you’ll soon have loyal customers who’ll love going
to your place as long as you help them achieve a Cameron Diaz
figure.
If you want to establish your gym, investment
will fall more on the heavy equipment such as the nautilus,
the treadmill, benches, and other weight-lifting devices.
A good location that is easily accessible by public transport
is key.
To put the final icing on the cake, you may
want to build a spa beside your fitness studio. Long before,
we viewed going to the spa as a thing being done by the rich
and the famous. But when its existence proliferated in the
provinces, it turned out that a decent working guy can really
afford to go to a spa for as low as P300 per session of massage.
Foot scrub averages P200. A facial can be as cheap as P250
in the provinces. Manila rates are double the provincial rates.
In Japan, relaxation centers have been given
much importance by the Japanese as a form of survival in their
highly competitive world. Japanese women are also known to
have good skin and the Filipinas always agree that beauty
products from Japan must be good, judging by the way a Japanese
woman’s face glows flawlessly and naturally.
Combine these two ideas, you get a perfect
business opportunity that you can study from Japan and bring
it to the Philippines. The Japanese people are known to be
dedicated in their careers but they also spend time and effort
in pampering themselves for a better well-being.
The Filipino is always struggling to survive.
He/she also deserves to be pampered. You might just know how
to take advantage of this need and turn an idea into a fairly
profitable business endeavor. Just open your eyes and feel
the market. Opportunities are everywhere. *
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