Lehto brownchenmorrison2006trr

TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH VOL. 31(1), 2006: 25-35

©2006 Tourism Recreation Research

Yoga Tourism as a Niche Within theWellness Tourism Market

XINRAN Y. LEHTO, SALLY BROWN, YI CHEN and ALASTAIR M. MORRISON

Yoga tourism has emerged and grown with the ‘travel to feel well’ trend. This study explored this under-researchedmarket by interviewing and surveying a group of yoga retreat participants in central Indiana, USA. This research,while exploratory in nature, delineated the socio-demographic and motivational characteristics of yoga tourists andprovided empirical evidences that an individual’s involvement level with yoga, physical health as well as mental well-being positively contribute to the propensity to travel for yoga. The findings bear practical relevance for tour operatorsand destinations that are trying to develop niche travel markets by tapping into the growing special-interest tourismmarket. This research provides a good baseline for future research on the yoga tourism phenomenon.

Keywords: yoga tourists, special-interest tourism, health and wellness tourism, involvement, well-being.

Introduction

Despite its growing popularity in recent years, yoga ishardly a modern-day phenomenon. It grew out of ancientIndian culture and has been practised for more than 5,000years. As an activity, yoga has been one of the fastest growingpursuits in the US. For example, a 2001 survey showed thatmore than 18 million people are practising yoga regularly.That number, experts say, is still climbing. Yoga is not areligion but is meant for individual growth and for physical,emotional, intellectual, and spiritual balance (Iyengar 1989).The mounting pressures and stresses of contemporary urbanliving have led to the search for a more holistic approach tolife. Yoga appears to have become one of the answers to thatneed. American doctor Halbert Dunn developed the conceptof ‘wellness’ in 1959. He wrote for the first time about aspecial state of health comprising an overall sense of well-being, which sees man as consisting of body, spirit and mind.Ardell (1977, 1986) further expanded this concept, seeingwellness as a state of health featuring the harmony of body,mind, and spirit. Wellness tourism, according to Muellerand Kaufmann (2001), is ‘the sum of all the relationshipsand phenomena resulting from a journey and residence bypeople whose main motive is to preserve or promote theirhealth’. As travelling for wellness becomes an increasinglysought-after visitor experience, tourism destinations have

strategically incorporated the ‘travel for wellness’ conceptinto their product offerings. The state of Hawaii activelypromotes the comforting, healing properties of its islandsfor visitors in search of solace or respite, along with its ‘warmwaters, trade winds and special people’ (Hawaii Health andWellness).

Yoga tourism has emerged and grown with the ‘travelto feel well’ trend. Yoga tourism can be viewed as a subset ofwellness tourism. Yoga means union of body, mind, andspirit. Yoga is widely believed to provide an avenue to reducestress, improve breathing, build strength, and gain flexibility.With the vast range of styles - from the soft Viniyoga to thevigorous Ashtanga (power) yoga - this discipline offerssomething for everyone. Physicians in the US and abroadare conducting a variety of studies gauging whether yogaoffers health benefits beyond general fitness. Early resultssuggest that it can provide relief for patients suffering fromasthma, chronic back pain, arthritis, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, among other problems (Parker-Pope2002). Yoga seems to have grown in popularity as a powerfulrelief for the increasing stress and pressures that ailindividuals in contemporary society. For many individuals,yoga has become the centrepiece in their pursuit of a balancedlife. Yoga has also increasingly become a tourism

XINRAN Y. LEHTO is Assistant Professor in Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907,USA. e-mail: [email protected]

SALLY BROWN is President of Ambassadair Travel Club and founder of Peace through Yoga. She is also completing her Ph.D. from PurdueUniversity, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. e-mail: [email protected]

YI CHEN is a Graduate Student at the same university.

ALASTAIR M. MORRISON is Distinguished Professor, Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette,IN 47907, USA. e-mail: [email protected]

Yoga Tourism as a Niche Market: X. Y. Lehto, S. Brown, Y. Chen & A. M. Morrison

26 Tourism Recreation Research Vol. 31, No. 1, 2006

phenomenon. Yoga is not only practised on a daily basis,but also on vacations. For some people, practising yogaconstitutes the central theme for their vacation. With theincrease in yoga retreats, seminars and conferences,individuals are using their vacation time to strive for a morebalanced life through yoga. However, research on yogatourists is virtually non-existent. Since there is less writtenabout the phenomenal growth in yoga tourism, it is essentialto acknowledge and research this area separately from‘wellness’ tourism.

The phenomenon of yoga tourism is relatively new andacademic research in this area is in its infancy stage. Theshortage of information about the demand for yoga tourismhas made it hard for tourism practitioners to develop andserve this niche market. There is a need to answer some basicquestions about this market. For instance, Who are the yogatourists? What motivates individuals to participate in yoga-oriented activities away from home? What types ofdestinations and settings do the yoga tourists prefer? Whatare the prominent factors that impact and dictate yogatourism participation? This study explored this under-researched market by interviewing and surveying a groupof yoga retreat participants in central Indiana, US. Morespecifically, this research assessed the underliningdimensions and factors of yoga tourists’ motivations, anduncovered factors that could potentially influence yogapractitioners’ propensity to travel for yoga purposes.

Literature Review

Yoga tourism is a subset of wellness tourism, and theyboth fall within the overall realm of special-interest tourism.The literature review examined yoga tourism phenomenonboth in the broader context of special-interest tourism andagainst the more specific setting of wellness tourism.Consumer involvement theory that has been applied byresearchers to explain high-involvement products such asspecial-interest tourism was also reviewed in an attempt tobuild some theoretical foundation for this research.

Special-Interest Tourism and Yoga Tourism

The development of tourism has been accompanied bya diversification of tourist motivations and competitionamong similar products from a variety of destinations.special-interest tourism (SIT) has grown against thisbackground to become an important niche market fordestinations that are growing or expanding their marketshares (Weiler and Hall 1992). A number of researchers haveproposed definitions for SIT from various perspectives(Brotherton and Himmetoglu 1997; Douglas et al. 2001; Read1980; Redekop 1999; Weiler and Hall 1992; WTO 1985). By

generalizing and synthesizing previous research work,Redekop 1999 defined SIT as niche markets developed byspecific sites or places for groups or individuals who wishto develop certain interests and visit sites and placesconnected with a specific subject such as yoga or sports.Special-interest tourists tend to share a common hobby orinterest that bonds them.

The development of SIT reflects the need of travellers tospend free time more profitably by engaging in cultural,physical, educational and spiritual activities (WTO 1985).Factors such as demographic characteristics, individual orgroup philosophies or ideologies, advances incommunications and attitudes towards leisure, all haveprofoundly altered the pattern of demand for tourism andled to the creation of new forms of tourism products (García-Altés 2005). These factors were further demonstrated inseveral research works on SIT. The World TourismOrganization’s report (1985) on active holidays and special-interest tourism revealed that three lifestyle changes had animpact on people’s travel patterns. The role that work servedto democratize well-being and to produce a widespreadconsumer society has given way from the traditionalconcentration on material goods to training and educationand gradually to leisure and holidays. Medical advanceshave also contributed significantly to an increasing emphasison the mental health of people living in industrialized andhighly automated urban surroundings. In urban andindustrialized centres, leisure and tourism have becomeessential to health, physical and mental well-being.Subsequently, people are now demanding more experience-based tourism products on vacations in addition to beingsurrounded by pleasant environments. Responding to theseneeds, came the rapid development of increasinglyspecialized and experience-based tourism product offerings.Trauer (2005) proposed that SIT tourists’ motivations weremulti-faceted in nature. In addition to treating SIT activitiesas status symbols, self-image, or a means to gain socialacceptance and recognition, SIT was also perceived asfacilitating personal fulfillment, happiness and paradise.

SIT research has embraced yoga tourism as one of thesubjects within its typology. As early as 1985, the WorldTourism Organization placed yoga within five groups ofspecial-interest and active holidays under the category ofsocial life and competition (WTO 1985). SIT has increasinglycaptured the attention of researchers, as is evident in theincreasing amount of conceptual and empirical researchwork on this subject. However, few existing studies on SIThave dealt directly with yoga tourism as a form of SIT.Nonetheless, SIT development and conceptualizationprovides a general background and support for the growth

Tourism Recreation Research Vol. 31, No. 1, 2006 27


of and research on yoga tourism.

Yoga tourism is well developed within the SITprogrammes of several destinations, such as India, the originof yoga activity, where flocks of yoga practitioners spendtheir vacations (Yoga Tourism: online) and Turkey, whereyoga breaks were offered in 2003 near Antalya on thecountry’s southern coast as a part of the Turkey special-interest and activity holiday series (Yoga Breaks Offered2003). For destinations, yoga tourism is a product conceptthat is based on ‘celebrating your destination with yoga’(‘Concept of yoga tourism’: online). While introducing yogapractices, retreats, or seminars into visitors’ itineraries, theyoga tourism experience is usually provided together withenjoying local art, history, monuments and nature. Asdemonstrated in various yoga tourism programmes, the huband the theme in this form of tourism is the yoga practice,around which the total travel experience is planned anddeveloped. This form of tourism is well suited as a componentof the larger context of SIT, which has been growing to fulfiltravellers’ unique needs by developing customized special-interest travel experiences or products.

While there has been no empirical research on yogatourism, there has been some initial exploration in tradearticles on yoga tourist typologies based on travel motives(Spence 2001). While spurred by the broad environmentalchanges and lifestyle movements, yoga tourism motivationswere seen as being derived from three important ‘push’factors that served as the drawing factors for people to go foryoga trips and vacations and thus fuelled the demand foryoga tourism (The Best of Kerala 2005; Spence 2001). Thefirst push factor is to ‘get away from routine work’ that couldhelp balance work with wellness and relaxation during orafter work. As reflected in yoga trip and vacation offerings,yoga breaks have been offered as the main activity or areincluded as part of travel packages targeted at those whoseek relief from the ‘work battlefield’. The second push factoris to ‘seek an authentic yoga experience’ in which yoga loverslook forward to quality and specific care and authentic yogatraining courses. Travellers in this group tend to be veryknowledgeable in the subject area of yoga and practice itfrequently. The yoga tours promoted by entities such as theyoga associations and magazines are mostly targeted at thisgroup of travellers (Hill 2004). The third push factor is to‘enjoy yoga fun’, which motivates travellers to enjoy yoga asa fun activity while they spend their vacations away fromhome. Yoga tours are well incorporated in some vacationpackages such as beach or seaside vacations, andhoneymoons (Searle 2005; Sternthal 2005). Individuals withthese motivations constitute the majority of the yoga touristgroup; however, they may participate in different activitiesand travel in various patterns. As Klein (2002) indicated,

‘For many, yoga means spiritual nourishment. But for others,it’s just, well, nourishment’. That is, the varying levels ofattitude towards yoga could lead to different behaviouraland psychological outcomes. From this overall frameworkof SIT, the ‘special-ness’ of the activities and the ‘special-ness’ of the tourists can be discerned.

Wellness Tourism and Yoga Tourism

The relevant wellness tourism literature is reviewed inthis section as it provides a conceptual and methodologicalbackdrop for researching yoga tourism. Travelling to improvean individual’s health, such as through cruising or a changein climate, has long been a motive for travel (Mathieson andWall 1982). The earliest form of health tourism dates back totwo millennia ago in India, Greece and Persia, at a time whenGreek physicians espoused the therapeutic values ofparticular environments (Douglas et al. 2001). Mineral bathsand spas in England, Baden-Baden in Germany and Vichyin France were the most famous places and are still popularplaces to visit (Douglas et al. 2001). As a result of theincreasing physical, moral and spiritual ‘damage’ of urbanliving at the turn of the century, wellness tourism haswitnessed a resurgence in contemporary society (Weiler andHall 1992). The escape or ‘push’ from a mundane, alienatingurban environment has been recognized as a majormotivating force in tourism; the desire for a healthy lifestyle,which is a significant intrinsic reward of travel, is also amajor contributor (Weiler and Hall 1992). Capitalizing onthis resurgence, tourism industry practitioners haveadvocated healthy, holistic type of vacations. Lederman(1996) suggests that a vacation should affect a person in ameaningful and permanent way. In her book ‘Vacations ThatCan Change Your Life’, she profiles holistic vacations thataddress the ‘whole person’ by fully integrating mind, body,and spirit. She also lists retreats that have a spiritual focus;describes adventures that heal the body or mind/spirit afterabuse, trauma, substance abuse, or illness; and details avariety of learning vacations that teach specific skills suchas foreign languages, defensive driving, backpacking, music,art, crafts, writing, homebuilding, and cooking. The centralbenefit for the provision of these activities is to maintain andimprove psychological and physical health and functions,according to Lederman.

While health and wellness tourism has historicallybeen present in tourism, it has long been dominated by thesub-sector of spa tourism, the initial form of health andwellness tourism. The spa business has witnessed renewedpopularity in contemporary society and has burgeoned intoa $10.7 billion industry. The number of destinations, resorts,and day spas has risen to about 9,600 in the US and 1,300 inCanada (Fodor 2003). The growth in the number of hotels



and resort spas has been outpaced by the growth in theoverall spa industry, according to a 2002 surveycommissioned by the International Spa Association, thelargest trade association for spa professionals.

Several definitions for health and wellness tourismwere proposed, based on the spa tourism model. For example,Mel Zuckerman’s definition (Verschuren 2004), proposedin the early 1980s, was arguably regarded as the bestdescription of health and wellness tourism thoughcontaining more information on spa tourism:

Today’s total spa-places providing programmes devoted toan individual’s health and fitness, redesigned to make theguests feel significantly better than when they arrived.The combination of fun, exercise, a healthy and balanceddiet, pampering relaxation, and education on managingstress offers magnificent chance for renewal. A spa is acomfortable environment in which to learn how to use thetools of life enhancement and get motivated to back into thereal world and practice what they have learned.

While yoga tourism used to be placed within thecategory of social life and competition or sport sector by theWTO (1985), it is mostly regarded as a sub-category of healthor wellness tourism as they share common functionalcharacteristics in travel motivations and social values, whichemphasize improving an individual’s quality of life andinvolve relatively active participation, often in outdoorsettings (Weiler and Hall 1992). Yoga tourism and spatourism appear to share some common features in terms ofwhy individuals pursue them. They sometimes sharecommon spaces, too, with a significant number of yogaprogrammes offered in the spas, resorts and retreats’ settings(Fodor 2003).

The search for wellness is derived from both physicaland mental conditions. Wellness elements include exercise,a healthy diet, use of vitamins/supplements, following aprescribed personal programme, and fulfilling emotional,mental or spiritual needs (Verschuren 2004). Moreover,today’s health and wellness consumer seeks to look and feelbetter, to lose weight, to slow the effects of ageing, to relievepain or discomfort, to manage stress, or to partake in the useof natural supplements like vitamins and minerals toimprove their health (Gold Coast City: online). While theseelements serve as underlying factors for the booming wellnesstourism phenomenon, they may also represent many of thefactors that influence yoga tourists’ travel motivations.Besides the elements shared with health and wellnesstourism, yoga tourism particularly represents holistic,naturopathic, alternative, aboriginal, Eastern medicinalpractices/therapies that meet the demand for fitnessimprovement, healthy lifestyle education, nutritioncounselling, healing, preventative medicine, solving personal

problems, and relieving, or alleviating, stress or depression.In this context, yoga tourism, similar to the general wellnesstourism programmes, may fulfil these needs. The wellnesstourism literature to a large extent provides a theoreticalplatform and methodological measurements for constructinga basic research model on yoga tourism.

In synthesizing the literature on special-interest tourismand health and wellness tourism, and their relationshipswith yoga tourism, this research proposed that:

Proposition 1: There are varying motivational factorsthat underlie the yoga tourism phenomenon.

Proposition 2: Individuals’ mental and physical well-being influences their propensity to travel as yoga tourists.

Leisure Involvement

Involvement theory was originally introduced in thesocial sciences literature, but has been adopted and studiedextensively in the field of marketing and consumer behaviour,especially in the context of leisure and recreation. Accordingto Rothchild (1984) and Kapferer and Laurent (1985),involvement is ‘an unobservable state of motivation, arousalor interest. It is evoked by a particular stimulus or situationand has drive properties and behavioral consequences’.Tourism researchers have adopted involvement theory fromleisure studies. Most research in leisure and tourism hascentred on the enduring properties of leisure and recreationactivities and their relationship with ego (Havitz andDimanche 1997). According to Havitz and Dimanche (1997),leisure involvement is used to refer to how people think aboutleisure and recreation and their behaviour consequencessuch as the individual’s engagement with variousrecreational activities and associated products, leisureservices, or settings. Researchers have consideredinvolvement from various perspectives. Attempts to measureinvolvement in the recreation and tourism literature havegenerally focused on the antecedents or the behaviouralconsequences of involvement (Havitz and Dimanche 1990).It is apparent that antecedents or consequences ofinvolvement offer insights into understanding tourists’behavioural tendencies. They give directions to product andservice development and are of very practical value fortargeted marketing programmes. Accordingly, this researchalso proposed that:

Proposition 3: Different levels of involvement with yogawill lead to varying levels of propensity to travel as yogatourists.

The dimensionality of involvement has been a criticalissue for researchers. They have devoted most effort towards



conceptually exploring and refining its measures andconstructs. Many researchers treated involvement as uni-dimensional and tended to use single-faceted scales tomeasure it. Others treated involvement as a multi-facetedconcept. Havitz and Dimanche (1990, 1997) proposed thatmulti-faceted scales are more appropriate than single-facetedscales for measuring leisure and tourism involvement, andhence proposed a four-faceted concept that they wouldrepresent enduring leisure involvement. The four facets wereas follows:

yoga destinations and additional motivational factors.

Measures and Statistical Analysis

l Eighteen Likert-scale statements were employed tocapture the respondents’ motivations for taking yoga-centred leisure trips. Since there were no priormeasurement scales tested or proven for use to assessyoga tourism motivation, the 18 measurementstatements for this study were developed based on anextensive review of the yoga literature, input from yogaexperts (yoga instructors) and traditions of travelmotivational scales.

l A five-item scale was used to measure the respondents’general sense of mental well-being including theirassessment of general satisfaction about life, how theyfelt about jobs, family relationships, and other socialrelations such as with colleagues and friends.

l A five-item Likert scale was developed to assessrespondents’ level of involvement with yoga. Theinvolvement scale was adapted from Havitz andDimanche’s (1997) multi-dimensional definition ofinvolvement.

The data analysis followed a three-step procedure:

(1) Mean and frequency analysis were first used to providea general profile of the sampled respondents.

(2) Factor analysis was performed on the 18 motivationalstatements. Factor analysis is a multivariate statisticalmethod for dimensionalizing data and detectingstructure. For this research, it was employed to detectunderlying dimensions of yoga tourism, thusaddressing the aforementioned proposition one, i.e.,there are varying motivational factors that underlie theyoga tourism phenomenon. While factor scores weregenerated through the factor analysis, the mean valuesof each original motivational statement were usedwhile assessing yoga tourism motivations. The decisionto go for original statements instead of using factorscores was due to the small sample size in this study.Additionally, by using the original statements, morevariation in motivations was captured.

(3) Lastly, multiple regression analysis was conducted.Multiple linear regression attempts to model therelationship between two or more explanatory variablesand a response variable by fitting a linear equation tothe observed data. In this research, it was used to assesshow well an individual’s mental and physical well-being along with their yoga involvement level could

Source: Havitz and Dimanche 1997

This research followed the multi-dimensionality ofinvolvement argument and designed measurementstatements for yoga involvement based on the four facetsproposed by Havitz and Dimanche 1997.

Data and Methodology

Self-administered surveys were distributed to 80individuals at a yoga retreat that was held in a Midwest USresort in October 2004. A total of 75 retreat participantsresponded to the survey questions. The questionnairecollected information about

(1) yoga vacation motivations;

(2) yoga vacation trip characteristics such as travel partycomposition, money spent, and destinationpreferences;

(3) perceived physical well-being, mental well-being, andyoga involvement levels; and

(4) socio-demographic factors.

To obtain information not captured by the structuredsurvey questions, a comment card was also given to allparticipants for them to give feedback on preferences about

Leisure Involvment 1 Attraction: the perceived interest/importance of

the product or activities, a pleasure or hedonic value of the product or activities derived from participation or use;

2 Sign or symbolic value attributed by the consumer to the product, its purchase or consumption;

3 Centrality to lifestyle: including both social contexts such as friends and families-centred around activities and the central role of the activities in an individual’s life;

4 The perceived risk associated with the product purchase



predict their likelihood to take yoga trips(aforementioned propositions 2 and 3) and what therelative importance of these factors are.

Research Findings

Profile of Yoga Tourists

The yoga tourists in general had higher levels ofeducation with over 21.5 per cent holding a Master’s or Ph.D.degree and another 31.7 per cent holding Bachelor’s degrees.In general, the household incomes of yoga tourists were highwith close to 40 per cent reporting incomes of $100,000 andhigher. The respondents were predominantly females (85.9per cent). More than half of the respondents were middle-aged (35–54). The single largest group (45 per cent) of theyoga tourists was from either the professional or technicalfields. The types of jobs they held usually required‘specialized knowledge’ (44 per cent), ‘working with manypeople’ (37 per cent), ‘specialized skills’ (36 per cent) and ‘alot of mental effort’ (34 per cent). In contrast, ‘sedentary jobs’(17 per cent), ‘a lot of travelling’ (6 per cent) and ‘a lot ofphysical labour’ (4 per cent) were not common within thisgroup. On the average, the respondents worked 38.35 hoursa week.

The top five motivations (based on a one-to-five scalewith M=five indicating the highest agreement) for going ona yoga trip were:

l ‘to renew myself’ (M = 4.46)

l ‘to relax’ (M = 4.46)

l ‘to be more flexible in body and mind’ (M = 4.42)

l ‘to let go of stress from a busy life’ (M = 4.41)

l ‘to help me gain a sense of balance’ (M = 4.38)

In terms of trip characteristics, almost half of therespondents travelled with friends (47.8 per cent), whileanother 27.5 per cent travelled solo. Travelling with spouses,parents or other family members appeared to be not aspopular. On average, the respondents had taken 2.54 yogatrips (with yoga as the primary purpose of the trip) in thepast five years. The majority of the respondents (68.5 percent) spent less than $1,250 per trip on an individual basis.Over half of them (56.5 per cent) stated that they were likelyor very likely to take another yoga trip in the coming year.The respondents were also very well travelled individualswith an average of 5.36 overnight leisure trips over the pasttwo years. When asked about what would be an ideal locationor setting for a yoga trip, the consensus seemed to besomewhere ‘warm/sunny/tropical and near water’. Parallelto that, the most frequently mentioned destination was CostaRica.

These yoga tourists were highly involved withpractising yoga on a daily basis. Half of the respondents(50.7 per cent) were avidly practising yoga either on a dailybasis or once every two days. The majority of the respondentsattended yoga classes at a yoga centre near home (80 percent). Half of them (55.2 per cent) had been doing yoga forfive or more years. In terms of their physical and mentalwell-being, the overwhelming majority of the yoga touristsrated their current physical health condition as good orexcellent (92.6 per cent). Further, these individuals appearedto be physically very active. Over 80 per cent participated inphysical exercise regularly (a few times a week or daily).Further, the yoga tourists also seemed to be happy people.They were generally satisfied with their ‘personal life’ (42.9per cent stating ‘very happy’), ‘family life’ (34.9 per centstating ‘very happy’), ‘relationship with colleagues’ (22.6per cent stating ‘very happy’) and ‘job’ (23.3 per cent stating‘very happy’), ‘friends’ (33.3 per cent stating ‘very happy’).They also reported that on an average day, they had aboutone to two hours to relax and pursue activities that theyenjoy (63.3 per cent).

Factor Analysis of Yoga Tourism Motivations

To assess the dimensionality of yoga tourists’motivational factors, exploratory factor analysis wasconducted on the 18 yoga trip motivation statements. Theextraction method used was the Principal ComponentsAnalysis with Varimax rotation and Kaiser Normalization.Four factors emerged from the analysis (Table 1). Theyexplained 69 per cent of the original variance and they allcarried Eigen values higher than one. By examining the factorloadings of the statements that loaded heavily on each factor,these four factors were labelled as: (1) seeking spirituality;(2) enhancing mental well-being; (3) enhancing physicalcondition; and (4) controlling negative emotions (Figure 1).The statement ‘to get away from daily routine’ was excludedfrom all four factors as it failed to load heavily on any ofthem (below 0.4 on all four factors). It is not clear as why thisstatement failed to load high on any of the four factors. Onepossible explanation could be that yoga practitioners areintegrating yoga into their daily routine and it is a way offacing ‘real life’ rather than escaping from it.

(A) The ‘seeking spirituality’ dimension1. ‘To give me clarity in making decisions’,

2. ‘To deepen my spirituality’,3. ‘To renew myself’,4. ‘To meet and interact with people with similar

interests’, and5. ‘To attend yoga seminars that are not available in

my home area.’



(B) The ‘enhancing mental well-being’ dimension wasrepresented by1. ‘To remember to be happy and grateful’,2. ‘To let go of stress from a busy life’,3. ‘To relax’,4. ‘To be more flexible in body and mind’ and5. ‘To help me gain a sense of balance in life.’

(C) The third dimension, ‘enhancing physical condition’ wasrepresented by1. ‘To exercise’,2. ‘To strengthen my muscles, especially arms and

abdominal’,3. ‘To tone my body’ and4. ‘To keep me from overeating.’

(D) The last dimension on controlling negative emotions’ wasrepresented by two statements:1. ‘To help me not get angry’ and2. ‘To help me not feel anxious.’

Multiple RegressionIn order to examine factors that potentially influence

the likelihood of taking a yoga trip in the coming year,multiple regression analysis was used. The model tested wasexplained as follows:

Y = + 1X1 + 2X2... + kXk

where a= the regression constant and 1... k =

partial regression coefficients

The dependent variable (Y) was represented by ‘howlikely are you in the coming year to take a yoga trip (yoga asthe main purpose of trip)’. The independent variables X1, X2,X3, X4 were represented by: (1) level of yoga involvement (X1);(2) physical health condition (X2); (3) general sense of mentalwell-being (X3); and (4) income (X4).

The literature indicates that an individual’s level ofinvolvement with a particular activity can lead tobehavioural consequences. Therefore, the level ofinvolvement with yoga (X1) was used as one of theindependent variables. Past research has shown thatinvolvement, the emotional status with an object or activity,is a multi-dimensional construct. Applying Havitz andDimanche’s 1997 multi-dimensional definition ofinvolvement, the construct of ‘yoga involvement’ wasrepresented by the following statements:

‘I feel my life is fulfilled through yoga and meditation’

‘Yoga and meditation is an important part of my life’

‘The spirit of yoga is similar to my values’

‘If there is a conflict of schedule, I prefer to go for yoga thanother activities’, and

‘ I can spend a whole day doing yoga and meditation withoutdoing anything else’.

Table 1. Exploratory Factor Analysis on Yoga Trip Motivations

Motivations Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

To relax -0.20508 0.715415 0.119698 0.452634

To let go of stress from a busy life -0.06017 0.697536 0.32983 0.25826

To excise 0.02305 0.496708 0.635044 0.03401

To remember to be happy and grateful 0.449671 0.739983 0.088374 0.142957

To strengthen my muscles -0.03921 0.089862 0.914834 0.046652

To tone my body 0.10416 0.236258 0.848105 0.128143

To be more flexible in body and mind 0.330701 0.701029 0.393358 0.081677

To help me not get angry 0.317915 0.333722 0.176854 0.740739

To help me not feel anxious 0.428451 0.356309 0.010555 0.66946

To keep me from overeating 0.193232 0.036775 0.569451 0.535475

To give me clarity in making decisions 0.749796 0.099837 0.217224 0.24991

To deepen my spirituality 0.84064 0.332391 0.04078 0.077471

To attend yoga seminars that are not available in my home area 0.645671 0.072006 0.069341 0.262647

To meet and interact with people with similar interests 0.789441 -0.04723 -0.00426 0.147213

To get away from daily routines 0.276023 0.016378 0.352485 0.314288

To renew myself 0.568722 0.426268 0.251193 -0.12471

To help me gain a sense of balance in life 0.43691 0.721272 0.143279 0.081915

To improve my physical health 0.196741 0.239494 0.762085 0.079034



These statements represented the centrality, or theimportance of yoga to one’s life. The Cronbach’s Alpha valuewas high at 0.85, indicating good internal consistency forthe five statements. An index of the additive value of all fivestatements was used to represent the involvement construct.

The yoga literature revealed that enhancing one’sphysical condition is one of the key motivations for partakingin yoga. Self-evaluation of physical health (X2) was used asthe second independent variable for possible contributingfactor for going on a yoga trip. The literature also suggeststhat yoga participants are motivated by an increasing senseof balance and happiness. Five Likert-scale sense ofhappiness variables were used to represent the sense ofhappiness and well-being (X3). These statements were:

‘I feel happy about my job’, ‘I feel happy about my personallife’, ‘I feel happy about my family life’, ‘I feel happy aboutmy relationship with my colleagues’, and ‘I feel happyabout my relationship with friends.’

The Cronbach’s Alpha value was as high at 0.81,indicating good internal consistency of the abvoe fivestatements.

The past literature in tourism has shown that incomelevel has a strong influence on an individual’s ability totravel. The income variable (X4) was introduced in the modelto account for variances determined by a person’s financialfreedom to engage in leisure travel. As indicated by Table 2,the overall model was significant at the p = 0.05 level. Themodel accounted for about 28.9 per cent of the variances (R2

= 0.289). Yoga involvement, physical health condition, andmental well-being were significant (p < 0.05) in explainingthe likelihood of an individual taking a yoga trip. The incomevariable was not significant in impacting intention to take a

yoga trip. The positive signs for yoga involvement, physicalhealth, and mental well-being indicated that all three factorswould positively influence participation in a yoga trip. Thesize of the standardized coefficient for each independentvariable represents the effect size of the independent variableson the dependent variable. For example, the effect size ofyoga involvement with the likelihood of taking a yoga tripwas 0.30, indicating that a one unit increase in yogainvolvement will result in 0.30 unit increase in likelihood oftaking a yoga trip while holding all the other independentvariables constant. Similarly, the effect sizes for physicalhealth condition and mental well-being were 0.35 and 0.22,respectively.

The tolerance statistic, an indicator for multi-colinearitylevel, was much higher than 0.20, indicating that that therewere no significant multi-colinearity problems among theindependent variables. This indicates good stability of thebeta coefficients. The Durbin-Watson statistic at 1.972indicates uncorrelated error terms, again indicating a goodfit of the model.

Independent variables

Standardized Coefficients t Sig. Tolerance

Yoga involvement 0.30 2.58305 0.012 0.806716

Physical health 0.35 3.178606 0.002 0.896405 Mental well-

being 0.22 2.073409 0.042 0.959502 Household

income -0.01 -0.13412 0.894 0.884105

Sum of Squares df

Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 24.34712 4 6.086779 6.609898 0.000158

Residual 59.85578 65 0.920858

Total 84.2029 69

R2 = 0.289

Table 2. Regression Model: Likelihood of Taking a YogaTrip

Seeking Spirituality

Controlling Negative Emotions

Enhancing Mental

Well-Being

Enhancing Physical

Conditions

Yoga Tourism

Motivation

Figure 1. The Dimensionality of Yoga TourismMotivation

Discussion and Implications

This research shows that the typical yoga tourists arepredominantly females in their forties, working asprofessionals, and with higher than average householdincomes. Their jobs seem to require interacting with people,special skills as well as mental efforts. While they appear tohave busy schedules with long working hours, they seem tobe generally happy people satisfied with work and familyand social life. They also tend to be very well travelled. When



they undertake travel specifically for yoga, they tend to beaccompanied with friends or by themselves. Their yogadestination preferences appear to be either a nature-basedsetting not too far from home or beach resorts with warmclimates. As for motivations for taking yoga trips, the factoranalysis showed there were four major dimensionsunderlying the motivational statements. These fourdimensions seem to be consistent with the four benefits thatyoga practitioners believe that yoga brings them: spirituality,physical and mental health as well as emotional balance. Astrong sentiment from the open-ended comment cards wasthe joy of practising yoga with people who shared similarinterests. A yoga trip is deemed as the ‘best balming effect’and ‘best dose of calming effect’ on participants. A yoga tripseems to be a luxury that busy working professionals perceiveas contributing to a balanced life.

Although most of the current literature falls into thearea of spa tourism, general knowledge about health andwellness tourism depicts a phenomenon more akin to yogatourism. Health and wellness tourism programmes areprofessionally delivered to help individuals find andmaintain a sense or attitude of well-being or find personalfulfillment, meaning and purpose in life while combiningthe quest for health and wellness through travel, leisure,and fun (Verschuren 2004). These wellness benefits couldpotentially be shared and sought after through yoga tourismprogrammes. This exploratory study provided someempirical evidence and support for Verschuren’sproposition.

While health and wellness tourism are usually treatedas one area and cited without differentiation, these are verydifferent tourism products. Verschuren (2004) posits thatindividuals with medical conditions travel to experiencetherapies that will help to make them well or to improvetheir health. A person who seeks a wellness travel experience,however, is generally healthy to start with, and seekstherapies to maintain his or her well-being. ApplyingVerschuren’s definition, yoga tourism seems to fall into the‘wellness’ dimension of health and wellness tourism.Holistic programmes such as yoga retreats make use ofpositive thinking, visualizations and workoutssynchronizing body and mind. Yoga tourists actively seekto enhance emotional, intellectual, spiritual wholeness, inaddition to physical well-being. Yoga tourists mostly arephysically healthy as the perceived physical condition of anaverage yoga tourist is very high. The multiple regressionanalysis results show that perceived physical well-beingdoes have an impact on individuals’ future yoga travelpropensity.

This research also bears some implications for yoga

tourism product planning and marketing. Ricci (2003) statedthat many Americans now turn to yoga in search of innerpeace or at least an hour or two of tranquility. But oftentimes,this is not enough, so more and more yoga practitioners arelooking to spend their coveted vacation time at a yoga retreatto combat the effects of 60-plus-hour work weeks and chronicmulti-tasking. This research lends empirical support toRicci’s 2003 observations. The research indicates that seriousyoga practitioners would just travel for the purpose ofpractising yoga (yoga as a trip purpose). The question is,‘What programmes could better suit their needs?’ It seemsthat opportunities to interact with people with similarinterests and building camaraderie and mutual support playan important role for motivating yoga tourists in addition toother factors such as the quality of seminars and venues. Asfar as destination preferences for yoga trips is concerned, itappears that yoga tourists are happy to just visit a sunnyplace, ideally with a beach or water body around. The desireto go to the ‘home’ of yoga – i.e., different regions of India – isnot apparent in this research. However, due to the smallsample size, this result should be interpreted with caution.More rigorous examination is needed in terms of howimportant destination settings are to yoga tourists. This couldbe a research area of interest that bears important implicationsfor tour operators targeting and serving this niche market.

A further implication is that the level of yogainvolvement has a positive impact on yoga tourism. Asdiscussed in the literature review, special-interest touristsfollow an advancing ladder in developing their activitypreferences. As their involvement levels with an activityincrease, they move from being generalists to specialists. Thisscenario could well be mapped with yoga tourists. Theycould potentially develop from participating in yoga as oneof many activities on a vacation trip, to travelling for yoga asthe primary trip purpose. Borrowing Trauer’s (2005)conceptualization of special-interest tourism, yoga touristscould potentially move along a yoga spectrum — aprogression from yoga as activity (casual leisure) to yoga aspurpose (serious leisure). This advancement ofspecialization of interests and activities may haveimplications for yoga tourism product development. Thecurrent yoga magazines and programmes are mostlytargeting the sophisticated yoga practitioners by themingtrips with a yoga focus. For this group, the destination choices,settings, quality of seminars and activities could be the centralconcern. However, for tourists who welcome yoga as aperipheral benefit/activity, the emphasis could be different.Different strategies could be more effective. This is in linewith the central and peripheral routes of cognition andpersuasion theory. For instance, yoga for fun could be moresuitable to connect with the less serious yoga tourists as



posited by Klein (2002) and Searle (2005). These ‘doing yogafor fun’ tourists could participate in different activities andtravel in various patterns. This bears implications for yogatour providers in their efforts to promote yoga as a moremainstream leisure pursuit. For instance, how is yoga beingpackaged into other holistic or non-holistic activities suchas skiing, diving or dancing and what combinations ofactivities and programmes would better cater to tourists withvarying levels of yoga involvement?

Conclusion and LimitationsThis research study has certain limitations. Two

obvious shortfalls are the convenience sampling and smallsample size. Interpretation and inference from this researchshould be done with caution. While the sampling for thisstudy is fairly representative of the US yoga tourists, moreresearch is needed to corroborate it with yoga tourists fromother Western markets. It is hoped that future research willbuild on this exploratory work and increase the rigour andvalidity of research in this area. As non-yoga tourists werenot included in the survey, the research does not provideopportunities to compare yoga tourists with non-yogatourists. It also does not permit further examination of the

yoga specialization continuum – yoga as an activity versusyoga as a purpose – because all respondents were travellingfor a yoga purpose.

This research, while exploratory in nature, delineatesthe socio-demographic and motivational characteristics ofyoga tourists. While yoga tourism is gaining in momentum,research in this topic area is in its infancy stage. Synthesizingyoga literature, this research incorporated concepts andconstructs that have been employed to explain touristbehaviour into the yoga tourism setting. This researchprovides basic profile information about typical yogatourists, preferences for yoga destinations, and motivationsfor taking yoga trips. This should provide practicalinformation for tour operators and destinations that aretrying to develop niche travel markets by tapping into thegrowing special-interest tourism market. They should nowbe able to better assess the needs and wants of this marketniche. At a conceptual level, this research tested theapplicability of the constructs of consumer involvement andwell-being in explaining yoga tourism behaviour. Insummary, this research provides a good baseline for futureresearch on the yoga tourism phenomenon.

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Submitted: April 18, 2005Accepted: September 11, 2005

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