Overall, fitness centres should promote the positive impact the perceived value of going to the gym has on individuals’ quality of life perceptions. Most intriguingly, this study demonstrates social-interaction value does not have a significant influence on customers’ quality of life perceptions. Thus, fitness centres should consider promoting the pleasure associated with going to the gym (emotional value), the affordability (monetary value) and the quality of the service (functional quality) to encourage people to join gyms rather than promoting the gym as a place of social interaction or a service which enhances how other people perceive them. The scope of this study was limited to regular gym users rather than personal training or group fitness sessions. Further research is required to ascertain if social factors are more relevant to personal/group training contexts due to the high human contact characteristics of these types of service activities. Increasing perceptions of quality of life among society is an important goal for most public policy makers. Local governments should allocate funding to public gym facilities. Generally membership fees are less than commercially operated gyms and therefore have the ability to attract more members based on monetary value. Making access more convenient by locating exercise facilities at worksites is another social marketing strategy designed to save time and effort for the target adopter (Kotler et al 2002). Moreover, obesity and overweight trends have resulted in a call for organisations to provide a fitness facility or subsidise gym memberships to enhance employees’ feelings of being valued and improving feelings about themselves and co-workers (Margia 2005). Future studies could take into consideration a person’s level of fitness and health status. The significant but relatively low R² regression value (for the perceived customer value dimensions customers’ quality life perceptions) highlights the need for future studies to explore additional variables that may influence quality of life perceptions. If a person is extremely fit and healthy they may perceive their quality of life perceptions to be considerably higher than someone who is moderately fit regardless of the perceived value of the gym they attend.