Germany: Karlsruhe’s Swimming Pool Facilities Satisfied with 2015 Season

Visited by more than 1.6 million guests in 2015, Karlsruhe’s 12 swimming pool facilities, as in the recent years, registered high attendance figures. Thanks to last year’s good summer weather, the outdoor pools welcomed 200,000 more guests than in the previous year while the indoor pool’s attendance figures only slightly decreased during the summer months. For 30 years already, the sports pool facility Fächerbad, which will be extended by the addition of a pool featuring a retractable roof this year, has welcomed about 300,000 guests each year. On average, each Karlsruhe citizen visits one of the city’s swimming pool facilities more than five times a year.

According to Oliver Sternagel, Managing Director of the 12 public pool facilities’ operator Karlsruher Bädergesellschaft, the new aim is to not only keep the visitor numbers on a constant level but primarily to develop long-term guest-relations and to keep visitors satisfied. Therefore, it is important to ensure a high quality for the facilities and to regularly make new investments in order to guarantee the attractiveness of the swimming pool complexes. Apart from the conversion works at Fächerbad, Europabad Karlsruhe, which opened its new “Green Viper” slide last year (cf. EAP, issue 3/2015), will expand its sauna area this year.  

Karlsruher Bädergesellschaft also announced that in 2015 the highest customer satisfaction since five has been reached. By continuously enhancing the 12 swimming pool facilities' attractiveness, the profitability could be increased over the past years. Most recently, Europabad generated an operational surplus of 200,000 euros. (eap)