Identify the Potentials to Develop Yoga Tourism with Special Reference to Western Province
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Currently, yoga tourism has become a new trend around the world and there are more
than 300 million yoga practitioners in the world. When consider the Sri Lankan context
Yoga tourism is not much popular. The research study aimed to identify the potentials to
develop yoga tourism in Western province. Qualitative and quantitative methods were
adopted to gather data by using data collection methods of self-administrative
questionnaires and structured interviews. The population of the study was international
Yoga tourists who visit the western province as well as yoga instructors and in-charge
person of the Yoga centre/hotel. The convenience sampling technique was used and 50
yoga tourists, 10 yoga establishments’ in charge person/ yoga operators, and 10 yoga
instructors were interviewed. Factor analysis and content analysis were used to analyse
quantitative and qualitative data and SWOT analysis were used to identify the potentials.
To identify potentials for yoga tourism in the Western province the profile of the yoga
tourists, yoga tourists’ expectation and behaviour, current situation of yoga centers/yoga
centers in the hotel, competencies of yoga instructors were evaluated. The results of the
study showed that the most influenced factor to do yoga was yoga program and
competency of yoga instructors. And the Western province has good yoga establishments
and there are experienced and qualified yoga instructors. All findings reflected that
Western province has huge potentials for yoga tourism as a new tourism market. It is
recommended that the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority should establish a legal
procedure to register and introduce standards and guidelines for yoga centers and yoga
instructors to promote yoga, and also to enhance the contribution of yoga instructors
towards to promote yoga and promote yoga tourism with Ayurveda department.
Keywords: Spiritual tourism, Wellness tourism
Description
Keywords
Hospitality Management, Tourism Industry, Tourism Management, Event Management, Yoga Tourism