Enjoyed the Aquatic Trends Report? Wait, there's more! We asked respondents about their goals for their facilities for the coming year. Here's what they had to say.
By far, the most common goal for respondents was to increase staff. Nearly one-third (31.2%) said that increasing staff was their No. 1 goal in the coming year.
Other common answers included safety (11.3% referenced safety), and regaining former members or finding new members (9.8%).
Beyond this, respondents had plans for facility improvements, and just plain old getting back to normal. Here's a list of all the goals aquatic respondents named for their facilities:
- Increase staff (31.2%)
- Safety (11.3%)
- Finding new/regaining former members (9.8%)
- Operate without restrictions/get back to normal (9.3%)
- Increase/improve programming (9.3%)
- Facility Improvements/Growth (8.6%)
- Lifeguards (7.6%)
- Re-open/stay open (6.4%)
- Facility maintenance (3.7%)
- Build new facilities (3.4%)
- Grow revenue (3.2%)
- Equipment improvements (2.7%)
- Staff training (2.7%)
- Outreach (2.2%)
- Improve guest experience (1.7%)
- Conservation/reduce resource usage (0.7%)
Here's a sampling of what some of our respondents had to say about their goals for their aquatic facilities over the coming year:
- "Enable memories to be made, entertain our guests, engage and grow our team, and grow revenue."
- "Get back to normalcy where our fans/parents/students can be back in attendance at our on-campus matches and able to fully use/utilize our swim facility."
- "A complete full staff ready for the fall/summer. Keep memberships and programs running full strength. Working in the community to work with others who need swim lessons, CPR/first aid. AED training."
- "In my facility, I hope to grow my staff, both in numbers and strength. I hope to restore confidence and passion in all my lifeguards and to boost the morale of my team as we move ahead into (hopefully) a post-pandemic period."
- "Update our in-service training for staff and have more frequent trainings and refreshers on emergencies and what to do."
- "To untie the COVID knot. The pandemic has left us in the position where we need to essentially perform a complete restart of the operations as if we were a new facility. Staffing, developing programming, equipment purchasing and more, all on a tight budget."
- "The number one goal over the next year is to get each and every person who was attending one of our programs pre-COVID back through our front door."
- "My number 1 goal for the coming year is to open a successfully safe pool which is clean and enjoyable. Opening a new operation will be difficult, but with the staff and management at this facility, anything is possible. Our goal is to have a safe, clean and FUN pool for our families to come and enjoy. With opening next year, hoping the world is in a safer condition, we hope to have an exceptional pool staff along with highly trained professionals to whom anyone would trust to keep you safe."