“Worth Every Penny” Experiential Value and Price Justification in Premium Fitness Consumption

Abstract

As experiential business models expand, understanding how consumers construct value beyond functional outcomes is becoming increasingly relevant to research on premium service consumption. Consequently, our study examines how consumers experience value in premium fitness consumption and how this value justifies price premiums. By using a qualitative study design based on eleven semi-structured interviews, our study describes the lived meanings consumers attach to premium fitness experiences across hedonic, eudaimonic, and social dimensions. Our study shows that experiential value in this context is not delivered through the service itself but constructed through participation, social interaction, and identity relevance, and that price justification is not a pre-purchase judgment but a retrospective process shaped by the meanings that emerge in use. The insights contribute to research on experiential consumption and service pricing by showing how price premiums are justified through non-functional meanings accumulated across repeated engagement, extending existing frameworks that treat value and price justification as primarily functional or episodic evaluations.