Sticking to a regular exercise schedule can be challenging for travelers. Between inadequate hotel facilities and the tedium of finding information about day passes offered by nearby gyms, the average traveler may just decide to skip out on exercise altogether during their trip, resulting in a negative impact on physical and mental health. Fortunately, Michigan Tech undergraduate students Jacob Carley, an electrical engineering major, and Gabe Giddings, a computer science major, have designed a solution for health-minded travelers looking for a place to work out. Their app, FitStop, compiles a list of local gyms offering day passes, facilitates the purchase of day passes, and allows users to fill out required waivers all through one smooth interface. The best part? The app is completely free for users.
Giddings originally developed the idea after a phone conversation with his brother, who travels frequently for work. “My older brother was talking about how he wasn’t very excited to use the hotel gym. I remembered my own experiences with hotel gyms, and I don’t like them either,” said Giddings. “I’ve looked into gym day passes when I’ve traveled, but most gyms don’t list much information.”
FitStop serves both users and gyms, explained Carley. “Our mission is to bring back fitness and healthy lifestyle into the busy traveler’s day. The problem for the user is that it takes a lot of time to go through a Google search and find information about day passes for each gym in a town. Hotel gyms normally aren’t very good, so travelers often avoid them. So, they don’t end up working out at all. That’s a problem for the traveler, but it’s also a lost sale for gyms.”
Although gyms make their highest profit margin on day passes, most choose not to advertise day passes because of the significant amount of paperwork guest users must complete to satisfy legal requirements. Consequently, day passes are underexposed and gyms fail to reach a considerable portion of their market. FitStop mitigates this problem.
“FitStop advertises day passes for gyms for free, which increases the volume of day pass sales. It’s automatic income for gyms and they don’t have to do any work, so it’s pretty easy to get gyms to sign on. It’s really a convenience on both sides,” Carley said.
Currently, FitStop can be used through a web browser by visiting www.fit-stop.me, but Giddings is also in the process of designing applications for iOS and Android phones. For the time being, the website is “temporary” and “bare-bones,” but interested consumers are encouraged to visit the site to gain an understanding of the process.
After entering a location, the website automatically generates a list of proximal gyms that are partnered with FitStop. “You can click a gym in the list to see more information, and from there you can purchase a day pass,” Giddings said. “You can fill out waivers online and add payment information so that you can start working out as soon as you get to the gym.”
Carley said, “We have Finlandia on our site right now, but we have spoken to almost every gym in the Houghton area and they have all been extremely interested in the application. We are going to be setting up those gyms with FitStop very soon.”
The full launch for FitStop is tentatively scheduled for 2019, but Carley and Giddings intend for the app to be usable by the end of this year. For more information, users and gyms can email fitstop.us@gmail.com.
