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A survey focused on 34 specific attributes of service quality in fitness centres was applied to 657 fitness centre clients in the city of Rio de Janeiro, following a stratified sampling process. The article aims to identify the most relevant attributes of service quality, from clients' perspective, necessary for potential future excellence-based classification schemes of fitness centres in Rio de Janeiro. A quartile analysis determined that the most critical attributes, i.e., with greatest average relevance, are related to the following aspects: (i) fitness centre environment, (ii) location and access, (iii) instructors' qualifications and (iv) results of training plans, while the items considered less relevant on average concern the following aspects: (i) additional services provided by the fitness centre, (ii) social interaction promoted by the centre and (iii) administrative employees. There is no similar research on the evaluation of service quality, from users' perspective, in fitness centers in Rio de Janeiro, and there is still no consensus in literature concerning instruments for such purpose and concerning what are the most relevant attributes to customers, when assessing service quality. In accordance, this research is relevant through providing data which are necessary to construct a hierarchical classification of fitness centres in relation to the quality of services provided.

The article aims to compare the perceptions of three groups of stakeholders regarding the relevance of specific attributes of service quality in fitness centres in Rio de Janeiro. The approach was qualitative, of the survey type, with stratified sampling and application of a single instrument formed of 34 specific attributes of the quality of services in fitness centres. To identify differences in the relevance of each attribute for clients, managers and instructors, variance analysis was performed through the Kruskal-Wallis test. IBM SPSS v 25 for Windows was used for statistical treatment. The study was carried out with 657 clients, 123 managers and 180 instructors in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The scale with 34 items presented a global and group Cronbach alpha that validated the instrument's internal consistency, confirming that its items measure the same construct. There were differences in the relevance attributed by the three groups in 32,4% of the attributes, showing non-alignment in the perceptions of those who deliver, manage and consume services in those fitness centres. It was not possible to compare the results obtained with previous studies due to the non-existence of research focusing on different stakeholders' perceptions of the attributes of service quality in companies in this business segment, revealing that the topic is a new perspective in assessing the quality of services in fitness environments.