Tenpin bowling is well established in the UK leisure market, and the multi-leisure park (MLP) sector in particular, giving it good visibility and consumer awareness but exposing it to competition from a wide range of alternative activities that are often bigger and stronger in terms of their public appeal and promotional clout.

Bowling centres have been successful in promoting themselves as venues for children’s parties and in hosting corporate groups, and have strong appeal for family entertainment. Where they struggle is in converting the occasional visiting patterns of birthday party-goers into repeat visiting and in broadening their revenue base. Bowling-centre dining is consistently unpopular, while bar takings and arcade revenues have been damaged by the smoking ban and Gambling Act respectively. However, with a large pool of potential customers, much-improved quality of venue and experience, and online marketing, booking and yield management systems set to reduce costs, there are clear positives for the future.

This report examines the challenges the tenpin bowling industry faces in the current market and assesses the available responses to these by testing the hypothesis that “consumer interest in expanding the range of activities they experience in their leisure time has been highly beneficial to minority interests like tenpin bowling, but has also made them more vulnerable to competition from rival activities in an economic downturn.”

Main report topics:

How is the bowling market performing as the credit crunch bites?

How are ancillary revenues performing and what can operators do to boost them?

How successfully are operators targeting groups (eg parties, the corporate market)?

What effect is the smoking ban having on the market?

How does tenpin bowling fit into consumers’ repertoires of other leisure activities?

Are multi-leisure parks (MLPs) still the prime location for bowling centres?

How much potential is there to recapture lapsed bowlers or encourage non-bowlers to try it out?

Is bowling pigeonholed as a family activity – or can it have a wider appeal?