You have made good progress on market research for your future multisport center and you have chosen the activities to develop. There could be for example four or five 5 a side fields, two or three squash fields and some badminton courts. You are already aware of how important catering is for the functioning of an indoor sports center in order to maximize time customers spend in your club and optimize your revenue. It is now time to focus on the search for premises and the most appropriate locations for your next center.
Choosing a location can mean success or failure for your business. You may have heard people saying “this place is bad” or something similar. Such comments occur in places where all kinds of businesses have opened year after year with no success. It’s unfortunate for venues where project leaders have put their whole motivation as well as large part of their savings and finally their dream of creating their own company dies a few months after opening.
Setting up your multisport center in a bad location is probably the biggest mistake you can make.
Choosing the optimal location depends on a number of factors that define your business. Depending on the space requirements that define the number of fields or activities to install, you need to do a thorough analysis of the needs that the location must meet.
Here are some tips to follow when looking for locations for your indoor sports complex.
1 – Good access is essential
Remember that there is no perfect place. If you want your potential customers to visit your 5 a side or multisport center, visibility and ease of access are two of the most important things to consider when determining the right location.
You have to look for a place with good access. Good access for whom? For your target audience. It is not enough that the center is well placed in relation to the road if your customers don’t travel by car or if they mainly use public transport.
2 – Close to the competition? Why not, as long as you think you can beat them!
When we speak of competition, we mean not only direct competitors but indirect as well. For an indoor 5 a side center, the competition can be either a bowling alley or a bar where colleagues meet for a night out after work.
Many experts in the property market say that the best place to be is relatively close to your best competitor, because you will benefit from their marketing efforts and regular customers, which is exactly what you are looking for.
Of course, it is always a good idea to look for an area where there is no competition, but make sure that the reason why there is no competition is not low demand for sport facilities.
3 – Become your client for a few days!
When developing your business plan, you must get to know your customers perfectly. You must really know how they are, what they do every day, and even how they think. Put yourself in their place and try to follow their same everyday routes, at the same working hours and go to their same places of choice for entertainment and leisure.
4 – Make your customer’s life easier
We all live in a rush: the hustle and bustle, the traffic jams to and from work, the shopping queues which make us waste time and effort during the day. If your client has to spend a lot of time and effort to access your future center he will look for alternative facilities or other activities that suit him better. Find locations close to your customers’ daily activities, such as shopping centers or areas offering additional services. If they are travelling by car, make sure the area has enough parking spaces especially during peak hours so that the time saved in finding a parking space is used by your customers to in your venue.
Any thoughts on what are the main characteristics for good implementation of a multisport center? Feel free to contact us anytime.