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NEWSWIRE
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Gold's zeroes in on 3 key markets |
By John Craig, Editor - 05.08.2008
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IRVING, Texas - Gold's Gym International is focusing on Southern California, the Philadelphia area, and the state of Ohio in its bid to persuade independent-gym owners to convert to Gold's.
"We've had a lot of interest in our franchising program in Southern California, but real estate is a tremendous challenge there," said Keith Albright, Gold's senior vice president in charge of franchising, citing the area's high costs and the difficulty in finding suitable gym space. "We think the conversion program mitigates those challenges."
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In metropolitan Philadelphia, Albright said, Gold's half-dozen gyms constitute a small footprint in the country's fourth-largest market.
Albright also repeated his belief the conversions are the best strategy for returning Gold's to the Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee markets that were vacated in January when franchisee Royce Pulliam left Gold's to launch the Urban Active chain.
Albright said Gold's next step is to send his regional field managers into the markets to court independent gyms.
"We're tapping all of our sources for candidates," he said.
Gold's, meanwhile, is slated to open 16 franchise locations - 10 of them in the United States - in the month of May, its largest one-month total in the history of the company, Albright said. Gold's typically opens three or four new clubs a month.
Most of the new locations are owned by existing franchisees. They are in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and North Dakota, as well as overseas in Madrid, Manila, India and Indonesia.
The clubs have been in the development pipeline for at least 18 months, before the downturn in the economy that has slowed franchise sales for Gold's and some other chains.
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