The social world and event travel career of the serious yoga devotee

Abstract

Serious leisure and social world theory provide a framework to qualitatively examine a small number of yoga participants with regard to their social world connections and propensity to engage in event tourism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 15 yoga practitioners in Brisbane, Australia. For most devotees, yoga was regarded as serious leisure with a social world in which highly involved ‘actors’ participated in a range of ‘insider’ capacities. Social engagement was a strong motivator and having friends involved with, and building strong friendships through yoga was a common denominator. It was found that there was a strong association between the social world of yoga and event tourism, and a new model titled the ‘yoga devotee career trajectory’ was developed. Yoga was considered to be a unique and personal journey which became a complete lifestyle involving continuous learning and self-exploration. Theoretical and future research implications were also discussed.