Lifetime Fitness 2010 Annual Report Download - page 16

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Other Membership Plans. We have three other membership plans that are aimed to attract niche memberships. They
include the following:
xJunior Membership: Children under the age of 12 qualify for a junior membership, with dues of $5 to $10
per month, depending on the center. The junior membership provides access to the child care center, pools
and gyms at designated times. We do not count junior memberships as reported memberships since they are
already part of the family membership.
x26-and-Under Membership: In 2008, we created a 26-and-Under membership for sale in select locations.
The membership provides individuals in this age group with monthly membership dues that are $10 to $30
less than the standard rate.
xExpress Membership: From time to time, we offer a limited service, center-only membership. Memberships
in this plan generally pay $10 less per month than the standard rate.
Other Subscription Plan. We offer a Flex membership, or frozen membership, for members who choose to “freeze”
rather than terminate their membership with us. Flex memberships are $5 to $10 per month, whether an individual,
couple or a family. Flex members continue to have online access to myLT.com, which includes Member Advantage
and interest-area content, a subscription to Experience Life magazine and the ability to resume an access
membership without paying an enrollment or administrative fee. We do not count these Flex memberships in our
membership count since they do not have access to our centers. We do not count these Flex memberships as
terminations in our attrition calculation since they remain connected to Life Time Fitness and continue to receive
other benefits associated with a Life Time Fitness membership. We experienced significant growth in this
membership type in 2009 and 2010, which we believe was due to our members’ desire to maintain a relationship
with Life Time Fitness notwithstanding economic challenges. As of December 31, 2009, we had 50,001 Flex
memberships. In 2010, we added more than 20,000 Flex memberships for a total of 70,302 as of December 31,
2010.
Usage
Our centers are generally open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We typically experience the highest level of
member activity at a center during the 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. time periods on weekdays
and during the 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. time period on weekends. Our centers are staffed accordingly during peak and
non-peak hours to provide each member with a positive experience. We have introduced a number of initiatives
focused on getting our members more involved and connected with the goal of higher membership usage and
increased member satisfaction. The following table reports our usage statistics:
For the Year Ended December 31,
2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
Total number of visits (in millions) ......................... 60.1 57.7 50.4 42.1 33.8
Average number of visits per month, per center ...... 57,407 57,792 56,300 54,647 54,376
Average visits per year, per membership ................. 98 98 94 88 84
New Center Site Selection and Construction
Site Selection. Our management devotes significant time and resources to analyze each prospective site (including
both undeveloped land and existing facilities available for lease) on the basis of predetermined physical,
demographic, psychographic and competitive criteria. We focus mainly on markets that will allow us to operate
multiple centers that create certain efficiencies in marketing and branding activities, but we select each site based on
whether that site can support an individual center.
After we identify a potential site, we develop a business plan for a center on that site. This requires approvals from
all functional areas of executive management and the finance committee of our board of directors. We believe that
our disciplined, structured process reduces the potential for developing a site that the market cannot support.