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The European Swimming Pool Market
Roland
Berger & Partners conducted a survey on the three main European
swimming pool markets: France, Spain and Germany. ASOFAP has
had access to a summary of this survey, detailed below. The
survey starts with a comparison between the European markets
during 1999, and considers the cases of France, Spain, Germany,
Italy, Portugal, United Kingdom and Austria. First in the
number of pools built during 1999 is France (40,600), followed
by Spain (23,000) and Germany (10,950). It can be seen in
graph 1 that France almost doubles Spain, which in turn, widely
doubles Germany. The fourth classification, Italy (5,300)
is 50% below Germany. After Italy comes Portugal (4,500),
United Kingdom (2,000) and Austria (2,000).
France
Swimming pools in France are mainly family pools. Of the total
of 542,400 existing pools, only 4,300 (1%) are public pools,
8,100 (2%) are private, group pools, while the remaining 97%
are family pools, with 530,000 installations. Graph 2 underlines
that the family pool segment is very new, the majority dating
from the last decade.
Private group pools are broken down as follows:
- Hotels 2,500 (31%)
- Campsites 3,000 (37%)
- Sports clubs 2,500 (31%)
- Thalasotherapy 100 (1%)
Public swimming pools, on the other hand, are old: the majority
were built in the seventies under the government campaign
“1,000 swimming pools”.
Spain
Family
pools and hotel and campsite pools are the main segments in
the Spanish market. According to the survey, in 1998, Spain
had 406,000 pools, 2,600 of which (1%) were public pools,
54,000 (13%) were private group pools, and finally, 350,000
(86%) were family pools. Graph 3.
The fact that private group pools are located in hotels and
campsites is for tourist reasons: Spain is the second most
visited European country after France. Swimming pools are
located in the south and east of the country (Mediterranean
coast).
Private group pools are broken down as follows:
- Hotels 5,000 (9%)
- Campsites 8,000 (15%)
- Sports clubs 2,000 (4%)
- Residential areas 39,000 (72%)
- Thalasotherapy 100 (<1%)
The survey finally underlines that the segment of family pools
is very recent. The figures show that we have the same number
of thalasotherapy centres as France and exceed this country
in the number of installations in hotels and campsites..
Germany
The
German market is dominated by the family pool segment. Out
of 256,650 installations recorded in 1999, there was a total
of 6,650 public pools (3%), 10,000 private group pools (4%)
and the remaining 240,000 were family pools (93%).
Graph 4.
Family swimming pools are around 25 years old on average;
80% of pools were built between 1970 and 1985.
Public swimming pools are particularly old (30 years) and
are divided into 2,900 open-air pools (44%) and 3,750 indoor
pools (56%).
Private group pools are broken down as follows:
- Hotels 3,250 (33%)
- Campsites 1,000 (10%)
- Sports clubs 2,500 (25%)
- Residential areas 2,250 (22%)
- Thalasotherapy 1,000 (10%)
It
is important to note the extensive size of the thalasotherapy
segment in Germany (10 times more than in Spain or France).
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