ARC Benchmarking

2026 Aquatic Recreation Centre Operational Benchmarking

Know how your facility is performing – and how it compares.

The ARC Operational Benchmarking Project, delivered by LIWA Aquatics and Royal Life Saving WA, provides Group 1 aquatic and recreation centres with meaningful operational and financial benchmarks to support better planning, decision-making and advocacy.

With more than 40 centres already participating in 2026, we are particularly keen to increase participation from regional Western Australia to strengthen our understanding of the true costs and challenges of operating facilities across the State.

Why Participate?

Benchmarking gives you more than a spreadsheet of industry data. It provides evidence you can use to understand your own operation and support conversations with senior management, Councils and funding bodies.

For example, participating facilities can use the data to:

• Compare operating costs – How does your expenditure per visit compare with similar facilities?
• Understand your subsidy – What does it cost your organisation to provide each visit, and how does this compare across the industry?
• Benchmark labour costs and staffing – Compare staffing levels, pay rates, training expenditure and labour as a proportion of operating costs.
• Compare utilities – Understand water, electricity and gas consumption and identify where your facility sits against comparable centres.
• Assess facility utilisation – Compare admissions, memberships, Learn to Swim enrolments and operating hours.
• Support asset planning – Put your facility’s age, replacement value and refurbishment investment into a broader industry context.
• Strengthen business cases – Use credible industry benchmarks when seeking funding for upgrades, renewals or new infrastructure.
• Track performance over time – Participation each year allows facilities to monitor trends and identify where performance is improving or changing.
• Strengthen industry advocacy – Combined data gives LIWA and Royal Life Saving WA stronger evidence to demonstrate the scale, cost and value of aquatic and recreation facilities to government.

What Do We Benchmark?

Participating centres contribute information across approximately 55 indicators, covering:

• Facility & Assets – facility size, aquatic and health and fitness areas, facility age, refurbishment and replacement costs.
• Usage & Participation – admissions, memberships, health club members, Learn to Swim enrolments and operating hours.
• Financial Performance – operating revenue, operating expenditure, corporate overheads, operational subsidy/surplus and marketing expenditure.
• Workforce – staffing numbers, pay rates, labour costs and staff training expenditure.
• Utilities – annual water, electricity and gas consumption.
• Safety – minor and major incidents.

The results can then be analysed across the participating facilities, including metropolitan and regional comparisons, helping operators understand their performance in context.

Join the 2026 Project

Data collection closes 18 September 2026, so there is still time to participate.

There is no cost to join the project, although facilities are encouraged to become LIWA members to support this and other industry initiatives.

All information is managed under a strict confidentiality agreement, with individual facility data not published without the approval of the relevant facility or local government.

Already participated in 2025? Your facility is automatically included in the 2026 project.

New to benchmarking? Join today.
Contact LIWA Executive Officer Leith Fradd at lfradd@liwaaquatics.org.au or 0451 993 526.

The more facilities that participate, the stronger our benchmarks become – and the better the evidence we have to understand and advocate for the real cost and value of operating aquatic and recreation facilities across Western Australia

Key Details and Information

• Data collection period: Closes 18 September 2026
• Results available: September 2026
• Confidentiality: All data collected is subject to a confidentiality agreement
• All users will be required to use either Microsoft Office 2021, Microsoft Office 2024 or Microsoft 365 as complex algorithms are used to perform the required data analysis.
• There are no costs associated with this project but we highly encourage you to become a LIWA member to support our industry projects.
• Workshops will be held for industry on both the data collection and how to use the data template results.
• This is an annual data collection project that is scheduled to occur in September each year.