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Industry data analytics experts ActiveXchange have shared suggestions on what businesses across all sectors of the industry might look to do while shutdown during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Looking forward to beyond the current crisis, the Sydney-based industry insights company suggests four action for businesses and organisations to consider to make the most of this time.

They are:

1. Facility and venue operators - understand the risks and plan to bounce back
2. Evidence and share the value of your venues to ensure ongoing government support remains in place when the doors re-open
3. Utilise this time and make the step change with how your team makes data driven planning decisions
4. Create stronger community connections through this time of social isolation - putting our software to use to help fitness and sport instructors coordinate local outdoor sessions

Providing detail, ActiveXchange founder Alex Burrows advises:

1. Understand and plan to bounce back - one of ActiveXchange's core services is the tracking of visits and membership status across the industry - now over three million people - to help organisations proactively adapt their offer. The first graph below shows the general decline in visit patterns as virus cases increased (sample 500,000 visits). This is to be expected but the decline was only around 20%, less than we expected given the negative (potentially unfair) media coverage in relation to the dangers associated with leisure, aquatic and gym facilities.

The second graph interestingly shows that the decline was sharpest in under 40s (those most sensitive to the risk). The lowest decline was by those aged over 60, the category most at risk of the virus. This suggests a continuing appetite and perceived importance by older generations to remain active.

We also assessed the patten of suspensions and cancellations leading up to the forced closures. We did't see any specific peak in cancellations which is encouraging and shows member loyalty. What we did see was a spike a few days before closure in those pre-empting the sites closing - particularly those aged 30-40. 

Solution: Targeted re-engagement of at risk members - we have extensive insight on what programming and incentives are best at generating attendance and customer loyalty across different demographic groups. We will be helping venue operator clients to ensure their timetable and campaigns are focussed and personalised from the outset - example program intelligence from SportsEye Operator below - key trending activities for members aged 30-40.

2. Evidence and share the value of your venues to ensure support is in place - we all know that community sport, leisure and aquatic venues provide economic and social impact. When sites get close to opening government budgets will be stretched even further. We provide two solutions: 

A. Health and Wellbeing Dashboard - track the impact your venues are making across health and inequality indicators and ensure your upcoming plans align with government Health and Wellbeing Strategies

B. Social Value - evidence the financial community savings your venues have made over the last 24 months, aligning with Federal Government model principles, includes indicators such as diabetes, dementia, types of cancer, education attainment and employment productivity. Further details can be found here https://activexchange.org/social-value

Solution: Set up your health and wellbeing and social value dashboards and work with the ActiveXchange/ SportsEye team to ensure there's a clear line of sight between your upcoming plans, funding requests and local outcomes and impacts.

3. Prepare now so you can make a step change in how your team makes decisions going forward - this is a golden opportunity to equip your venue, sport or local government team with key industry data and insight tools to ensure decisions are always evidence based. This also means funding is more easy to source. For sport and government a good starting point is getting a free account to access the new National Infrastructure Database (powered by SportEye and governed by a steering group of state governments and national associations).

Click here to register for your account.

Solution: Ensure your team has a comprehensive view of relevant infrastructure and begin to factor this insight into your plans going forward (it's free). The platform also enables your team to setup site action plans and collaborate on these plans internally or with other cross-industry organisations - avoiding long emails lost in inboxes.

4. Create stronger community connections through this time of social isolation - putting our software to use to help fitness instructors coordinate local outdoor sessions
With our industry partners we are scoping a potential solution that would utilise our interactive national database mapping software, strategic partnerships and national network to enable fitness instructors and sport coaches to advertise and manage outdoor small group sessions (capped at two to 10 people, always in line with government guidelines, and with social distancing where necessary). And for the public to then be able to register for these sessions, keeping it really easy to use. This will be an open and free platform.

This will enable communities to re-connect, helping with both physical and mental health, support jobs, and provide the industry with a new broader target market of prospect members for when it fully bounces back. 

Click here to contact ActiveXchange via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.

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