Yoga tourism

There is a tension between the purely spiritual and transformational goals of yoga, meaning union with an entity higher than the self, and the commercialisation inherent in mass tourism.

[6] In 1968, the English rock band the Beatles travelled to Rishikesh to take part in a Transcendental Meditation training course at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, a Hindu monastery.

[7][10][9] In 2014, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing the United Nations, announced an annual Day of Yoga on 21 June.

[13] Yoga holidays are provided in countries including Greece, Sri Lanka, Japan, Thailand, Scotland, France, Morocco, England, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the Maldives and Wales.

[17][16] Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, now also a romantic Hollywood film, describes her experiences in an Indian ashram on her journey of self-discovery.

Some yoga tourists travel to India to become certified yoga teachers, like these participants in a 200-hour Ashtanga yoga teacher training in Rishikesh .
Tourists practising Virabhadrasana I in Poon Hill , Nepal
The governor of Tamil Nadu state, the Indian minister of tourism, and the yoga guru Jaggi Vasudev promoting yoga in India on the 3rd International Day of Yoga in 2017 at the Isha Foundation , Coimbatore. A large statue of the god Shiva as Adiyogi (the first yogi ) is in the background.
A yoga holiday in Fiji