This report looks at the following areas:
- Participation in various leisure and foodservice activities in the past month
- How changing consumer lifestyles and priorities are reshaping how people spend their free time
- What pubs and bars need to do in order to protect themselves from the threat posed by alternative leisure venues
- How health and fitness clubs and leisure centres can evolve to meet consumer demand for holistic wellbeing
For the first time on record, more people went to a gym multiple times in the past month than went to a pub for drinks on more than one occasion.
Paul Davies, Category Director – Technology and Consumer Leisure Habits
Market Definitions
This quarterly Report explores the changing consumer attitudes and behaviours towards out-of-home leisure activities in the hospitality industry, including dining at pubs and other foodservice establishments, as well as taking part in other leisure activities such as going to the cinema, gym, and attending live sporting and music events.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Three opportunities for the leisure sector
- Gyms attract more frequent visitors than wet-led pubs for the first time
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Recent leisure activity participation
- Hospitality sector dominates leisure activity
- Graph 1: participation in leisure activities in the last month, 2025
- Pubcos continue to hold strong
- Continued focus on food and entertainment will protect pubs
- Pubs and bars introduce experience-led concepts
- Pub and bar chains could license competitive socialising technology
- More fun than a ‘drinks night’ out
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SPOTLIGHT ON: GYMS AND LEISURE CENTRES
- Gyms attract more frequent visitors than wet-led pubs for the first time
- Graph 2: participation in going to the pub for drinks vs going to a gym/leisure centre more than once a month, 2016-25
- Brits remain committed to health and fitness
- Public providers are bigger players in volume than value terms
- Graph 3: share of Snoop SpendMapper fitness category cohort customers, by brand, 2024-25
- Graph 4: share of Snoop SpendMapper fitness category cohort customer spend, by brand, 2024-25
- Health and wellness services can support leisure centres’ future wellbeing
- Graph 5: interest in accessing health and wellbeing services at public leisure centres and swimming pools, 2025
- Everyone Active widens its membership focus beyond physical fitness alone
- Relax, reintroduce and remind
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Appendix
- Market definition
- Consumer research methodology
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