Pros and Cons of Leading a Yoga Retreat for Your Studio

Leading a Yoga Retreat: Pros and Cons

It’s easy to imagine; A gorgeous, peaceful location far from the daily hassles of work and other real-world obligations. Your devoted students disconnected from technology and more blissful than you’ve ever seen them. The idea of leading a yoga retreat to share the beauty of yoga in a far deeper and more complete way than you can in a class back home at your studio. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

Yoga retreats are sublime. All yoga students should have the opportunity to attend a retreat and reap the benefits of the deepened practice. Plus, with companies specializing in retreat planning, it’s easier now than ever before to lead a retreat. But, before you decide to lead one of your own, it’s essential to think through the benefits and challenges of doing so.

Benefits of Hosting a Retreat

Diversify Revenue

Of course, retreats will be an added source of revenue for your studio. On average, if you select a reasonably affordable location and services, you can expect to make close to $1,000 per student for a week-long retreat. However, it’s important to remember you must price your retreats high enough to cover the costs and enjoy a profit. Pricing is often where studio owners and teachers get into trouble because you usually need to price the retreat higher than you might feel comfortable with.

Build Community

Noting brings a yoga community together like a peaceful, healing and life-changing yoga retreat. Studio owners who host retreats build valuable friendships and enjoy life-long, devoted students.

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Challenges Associated with Hosting a Retreat

The Work Required

Leading a yoga retreat takes a significant amount of work to plan and execute.  As we mentioned, you can make a lot of money hosting a retreat, but the money you make is proportional to the work required.

From booking a venue, arranging for transportation and marketing the event, to planning and teaching all the classes, overseeing other services and managing the business aspects of the retreat, there’s an extraordinary amount of work required.

Moreover, there will be mishaps and surprises which can be stressful and challenging to manage. Many retreat planners go into the process thinking it will be a peaceful experience for them too, but instead they find it’s far more stressful than day-to-day studio operations.

The Cash Investment

You will have to spend money to make money, and some of these expenses are significant. You’ll need to place deposits for the retreat venue and group ground transportation. Your transportation to the location and your marketing costs are an additional upfront expense.

The good news is that most yoga retreats are wildly successful, and they get easier to plan and execute the more you do them.

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