| dc.description.abstract | With more people being overwhelmed with stress and their busy lives, the wellness industry has been growing exponentially in recent years and so has the search for alternative lifestyles. This is one of the reasons why yoga has become such a phenomena in the western world. Nowadays, it has been fully integrated into our society, which also means it has been fully commercialised. A trend within the yoga industry is a growth in the number of yoga festivals. This study examines which audience is attracted to yoga festivals and what motivates people to attend.
To achieve this, a qualitative approach with eight semi-structured interviews was chosen; this supported the goal to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic and offer unique insights into the participants’ thoughts and feelings. The data was analysed using themes and codes. Analysis of the most occurring themes is presented in the discussion chapter. The results confirmed that yoga can be classed as serious leisure and consequently as an important part of the life of many devotees. The study further confirmed the yoga devotee career trajectory. These two findings showed that the yoga audience is very dedicated to the subject and that it is more a lifestyle rather than a hobby; this is also reflected in the festival attendance motivations. The majority of the main motives were very yoga specific, such as the importance of good teachers, offering meditation or exploring nature. The final section of this study summarises the findings and offers recommendations for yoga festival organisers as well as future research. As this is a very new research field there are many opportunities, one of which has been explored in this study | en |
