Virgin Active combines fitness with health, co-working and socialising
“2025 was a year of consolidation and growth. We closed the year with a turnover of 206 million euros, up 9 per cent on 2024, and a pre-tax profit of 20 million, confirming a positive trend in both financial and operational terms. Today, Virgin Active Italia has 42 Social Wellness Clubs, around 205,000 members and a team of nearly 3,000 professionals, including staff, personal trainers and group trainers.” Luca Valotta, chairman and founder of Virgin Active Italia and chief operating officer of Virgin Active Group, has a clear view of how the wellness market is performing and is making optimistic predictions for 2026.
“We believe that the wellness market will continue to grow, driven by a structural shift in demand,” he says. “Today, people are investing more and more in preventative care, longevity and quality of life. We want to consolidate our leadership in Italia and support the group’s international expansion plan, whilst maintaining sustainable growth over the medium to long term. In the first six months of 2026, we continued to grow steadily, with an increase in turnover and EBITDA compared with the same period last year.”
Growth continues both in Italia and internationally. “In January,” Valotta continues, “we opened the new Social Wellness Club in Milan’s Porta Vittoria district – the city’s fourteenth – an investment that represents the evolution of our model, integrating training, recovery, health-focused services, co-working and socialising into a single experience. Italia is one of the group’s most important markets, not only in terms of size but above all for its capacity for innovation. It is here that, over the last twenty years, we have developed the concept of the Social Wellness Club, a model that also serves as a benchmark for the brand’s international development. Many of the innovations introduced globally originated right here in Italia: from the integration of training, recovery and socialising to the evolution of our health-focused offering, right through to the development of new services and digital touchpoints. This is precisely why we will continue to invest in our country with new projects in the main metropolitan areas. Among these, in the first half of 2027, we plan to open a new Club in Milan, in the Piazza Cordusio area – a project that will mark an evolution of our premium positioning by taking the Social Wellness Club concept beyond training, creating links between wellbeing, culture, lifestyle and the city.”
As for international expansion, “we have entered the Swiss market with the acquisition of Club Planet Wellness in Lugano, which will become the country’s first Virgin Active Social Wellness Club,” says Valotta. This is a strategic move that marks the start of a wider development plan across continental Europe. The roll-out will continue in 2027 with openings in Vienna and Brussels, where we will introduce the new generation of Social Wellness Clubs. It is the same vision that is also guiding the refurbishment of our international flagship clubs in Doha, Cape Town and Sydney, as well as the recent reopening of our Mayfair club in London, and which will shape the group’s development over the coming years.”
