Evaluating the yoga experience

Conference: Atlas

Dates: 3-5 September 2018

Abstract:

The route to transformation? Evaluating Yoga event experiences

Experience has been a focus in some research since the 90’s, seeing a particular rise since Pine and Gilmore (1998) gave shape to the concept the “experience economy”. Since then, awareness in business followed by research on the “experience” has been increasing. In events, only in recent years there has been a specific focus on the experiential aspect, on the one hand with the popularity of experiential marketing and events marketing, and on the other hand with the attempt of trying to capture the specificities of what a “great” event experience is. However, the answers are much more complex than just coming up with a set of indicators or measures which would be the recipe for the successful event experience.

The aim of this paper is to compare visitor’s experience using indicators from Geus et al. (2015) applied to two Yoga events, one in Portugal, another one in the UK. By comparing these event in the profile of visitors, motivations and experience factors, an outline of the specific experiential characteristics of a yoga event can be made. The data points out to the existence of some specificities in a yoga event experience, although further research on transformative experiences should be pursued. With these elements, yoga events can better differentiate from others and aim at being “transformational” (participating towards what Gilmore argues as the “transformation economy”). This paper aims therefore to bring new insights on a specific type of event experience, bringing forward the comparison between two countries, which can be a stepping stone in understanding how events are encompassing transformational elements in their design of the guest’s experience.

Source: Manual