According to Business Insider, Virgin Active, South Africa’s largest gym chain, will be closing its over 140 gyms at the end of Tuesday and all membership fees will be frozen after a national lockdown was announced.
Virgin Active told Business Insider that it supports the presidential decrees and will, therefore, close gyms, and freeze the total membership fees at no cost.
It said their tenants will not be required to pay rent for this period, which includes personal trainers.
An app has furthermore been made available to their personal trainers at no cost to allow them to offer their clients virtual workouts.
“We believe this to be an equitable solution despite our business receiving no subscription revenue during this period,” Virgin Active said.
The gym chain has already introduced online workouts through its app to all members and will be adding to publicly-available content daily.
“Our people remain the lifeblood and the future of our business, and we are working to ensure everyone is taken care of.”
