Problem Statement
According to Liljestrand and Sambath (2012), Yoga is one of the most ancient and well-known forms of maintaining the well-being of body and mind that is being conducted by the people on a global basis. According to Streeter et al. (2012), with the origin in India, this major form of well-being has expanded far and wide to the various parts of the world to maintain the bodily and the spiritual disciplinary practises that are gained through one of the six orthodox schools of the Hindu religion. Different countries of the world have established their own form of the yoga retreat to make sure that the social enterprise version of the form has means to establish the aspect of social rehabilitation to the disadvantaged and underprivileged class of the society (Cramer et al. 2013). The paper aimed to establish the market research and plan for the yoga social enterprise that is aimed to support the social development in Cambodia. The following paragraph are aimed to discuss the concept test, value chain, demand and the mixed form of decisions that are mainly attributed to the clients to make sure that the offering has international and value-adding services to the people of both Cambodia and the rest of the world who are seeking to establish the benefits of the International Yoga Retreats. The following paragraph of the study also has highlighted a concept note that is meant to analyse the study in a board manner and also to assess the market environment.
The title of the proposal study is called: A Yoga Social Enterprise to Support Social Development in Cambodia
The problem that this proposal aims to address is the establishment and success factors of the Yoga retreat that is being started at Kampot in Cambodia with the principle benefits and parameters of the push and pull campaigns. The research paper also aims to establish the key products that are attractable for the tourists along with the valid recommendations for the same.
The principle research objectives of the study is to analyse the potential yoga market and retreat strategies of Kampot, Cambodia and the ways in which the valuable retreat can be used for the success of the brand both in national and international level. The objectives of the research are as follows –
- To analyse the principle benefits that are derived by Yoga Studios and Yoga tourists and to make sure that they have a genuine inclination to buy.
- To identify the key products and services that can attract the tourists both from national and international level.
- To identify the parameters that are engaged in the push and pull campaigns and communication mix in the market
- To state valuable recommendations for the campaign to direct the results in a positive manner and methods to increase the rate of success.
Factors such as cultural knowledge have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- The more the cultural knowledge, the better impacts of the Yoga Retreat in the country.
Factors such as marketing techniques have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It is being assumed the better the marketing techniques, the positive impact of the Yoga Retreat on the people
Factors such as the amount of social development have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It is being assumed the more the amount of social development of the retreat, the better the impact of the Yoga Retreat in the country.
Factors such as level of health knowledge have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It is being assumed the more the level of health knowledge among the people, the greater the success of the Yoga Retreat
Factors such as health awareness have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It has been assumed that with the increase in health awareness among the mass and the government, the greater the success of the Yoga Retreat
Factors such as social development have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It has been deciphered that with the increase in the social development, there is a positive impact of the success of Yoga retreat.
Hypothesis 7
Factors such as social awareness have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- With the increase in the level of social awareness, the success of the Yoga Retreat is there in the concerned time.
Factors such as income determinants have an impact on the success of Yoga Retreat
- It is being assumed the income of the individuals at the country is directly proportional to the success of the Yoga Retreat of the country.
Research Objectives
This research proposal tends to develop on the objectives like i) summarising the primary advantages that are sought out of the retreat by the yoga studio as well as yoga tourists, ii) Identification of the primary products or services which have the potential to attract the international retreats tourists and/or operators, iii) Identification of the parameters involved in push and pull campaigns as well as marketing mix involved in main international markets, iv) Delivering recommendations about products and/or attributes with indication of a campaign direction for enhancement of the likeliness in the context of in-market success of yoga retreat in Cambodia.
Mechanisms of Push and Pull are popular as motivators of touristic activities, where push is perceived as the internal motivator and on the other hand pull is referred as the eternal incentives which lead to touristic activities. As per Maddox (2015), the present population of Yoga tourists are driven by a strong urge for the exploration of one’s spirituality parallely seeking transcendental meaning as well as peace in their life. However in Cambodia, if some organisation can actually climb the helm of the industry, this robust industrial trend can thus actually offer a lucrative financial as well as semi-hedonistic incentives to the female clients who are the core customers, provided they are being brought along with their respective male relations, whether it being their spouse, boyfriend, colleague, friend or even business partner. In fact, Bowers and Cheer (2017), opines that the incentives are so lucrative that their male counterparts are easily convinced to join their campaign. The males might also seek value in case if they find scope of financial gains as well as hedonic gains. Once in some way or the other the males get in to the business and are persuaded to try out yoga, they would easily get over the hurdle of how they would get started in this industry. Rather than attempting various ways to get over hurdles to enter this industry within the context of their home environment, clients should venture the tourist environment which can serve to be a more classified catalyst for helping the transformation of male clients (Smith and Sziva 2016). In pursuit of this exposure as well as this introduction, it might be hoped that males should carry on the practicing yoga even if they revert to their home environment. This would turn out to be a win-win situation. This would have expanded to hitherto an untapped and huge male client market and thus it would be beneficial for addressing one of the huge public health challenges in Cambodia.
Each tourism industry requires a certain good amount of investment on the advertisements. This yoga tourism can consider investing a segment of their development budget on creation of advocacy movement concerning yoga tourism within major charities dedicated for the well-being of social groups pertaining to low economy as also with welfare program under concerned local governments, making an urge to those concerned authorities for sponsoring yoga-tourism for the cause of the disadvantaged populations (Zapalska, Brozik and Zieser 2015). In this contest, Dillette, Douglas and Andrzejewski (2018), opines that Yoga tourism would emerge beneficial by collaborating with various yoga advocacy societies. In order to ensure greater involvement of those charitable trusts and/or those local governments, the industry should offer specialised discounted yoga packages for the clients of low socio-economic class whose development is basically funded by collaborating charities as well as welfare programs. As an outcome this yoga tourism industry contribute in development of the wellbeing of the socio-economic populations.
Hypothesis
Yoga have immense potential for addressing the challenges of the modern society. The natural extension of practising yoga is Yoga Tourism. However, the modern societies are being riddled with various kinds of disparities and health disparity is one major out of them. As per, Patwardhan (2016), in spite of high rise of Yoga, everybody do not pertain to Yoga. Mainly the males as well as the people of the low economic classes refrain from using Yoga. Specific barriers are there because of which the various subpopulations are not able to pursue yoga. Yoga tourism can be seen as a big opportunity that can be suited for filling up this unmet need. However, Prakash (2015), states that in order to accomplish that the revising the targeting as well as the marketing strategies for reaching out to the males as well as the disadvantaged, as well as also to the various charitable funds as well as the governmental agencies in order to support the cause of social tourism. While accomplishing this, Yoga tourism would not only grow and expand itself, however also make a significant contribution to the cause of the global health of the public in general.
Yoga Practice in the western world have been on ascent since 1960s. Many people have started to go to Yoga classes owing to the perceived need for betterment of physical health as well as emotional well-being (Dillette, Douglas and Andrzejewski 2018). The development of many more Yoga studio in Southern Asia including Cambodia and in parts of Europe shows that the diverse efficacies of yoga have been instrumental in the ascending popularity of the global community. In the US alone, $5.7 Billion Dollars have been invested to involve 15.8 million people (Sharma and Nayak 2018). Among the entire population which practices yoga in America, 72.2% of them are female who have joined Yoga with the desire of becoming slim, flexible, reducing stress as well as become attractive (Cheer, Belhassen and Kujawa 2017). A survey conducted among the Yoga practicing people in America reveals that 3.8% of the people are only aware of the specific health benefits of practising Yoga. The turnover from the Yoga industry is further ascending in Asia, preferably in Cambodia and Hong Kong where Pure Yoga is a big industrial brand since the advent of the year 2002 (Patwardhan 2016).
In this context, product refers to the core part of practicing Yoga, that is bereave of brand or packaging. This is a service that serves tangible purposes (Khanal 2017). However, brands as well as the actual service received by the customers in packages are what helps in framing customer perceptions. The brand effect of the South East Asian Yoga brands are higher and hence if they open overseas branches, the perceived brand appeal would help in the further expansion of yoga in the global community. In the context of Yoga Tourism, Bowers and Cheer (2017), defines that the product can be discriminated into two segments, namely functional, as well as aesthetical. Aesthetical factors in this context, refers to the sense of satisfaction as well as joy that is induced as an impact of the aesthetical presentation of services and/or products, like marketing, packaging and so on. Functional aspects of the product involves the core services offered, the values induced by the practice of yoga in original as well as core values of running the Yoga industry.
Literature Review
The concept of research designs signifies the ways in which the researcher deals with the problems in the context of the research based on the primary and secondary data present. The research design of the proposal is to analyse the objectives that are previously stated in the paper which assesses the social retreat in Yoga which is meant to analyse the social development of the Cambodian state. Yoga retreat being quite new to the country can be of a great attraction factor for both the international and national level of tourists and can make sure to analyse the social benefits that the research has in terms of the social development. The research will implement Qualitative approach which is suitable for the case with a questionnaires will be surfaced among the people to get an answer to the social development (Vaismoradi, Turunen and Bondas 2013). The research will analyse the descriptive mode of the data analysis will be exploratory in nature which will enable to focus on the questionnaires designed for the process and will suitable to analyse the qualitative data used for the analysis. The research hypothesis will be investigated with an open mind to get the new answers and perspectives of the research modules (Neuman 2013).
Data collection is defined as the process in a research in which the researcher collects data from both primary and secondary sources and uses them for taking out the results. There are two kinds of data used for the analysis – primary and secondary (McDaniel and Gates 2013). In the said research process, primary data in the form of questionnaires is being used which will help to analyse the topics of the customer level of satisfaction and will also analyse the benefits of the process in the social development of the country.
Sample technique is defined as the collection of information from people in a random manner. The sampling process is involved in the collection of data from a group of people who are interested to have an analysis of the social development of the sampling parts of the required research (Tesch 2013). The sample is generated by the means of questionnaires which are being distributed among the international and national tourists visiting the area. The research will employ a sample of 75 subjects according to the tourism industry and the level of interest. The sample is selected as it is impossible for the collection of wholesome data and also necessary for getting random feedbacks.
The statistical analysis is defined as the process in which the data can be analysed using the tools of statistics and can be of three types – descriptive, difference and association (Field, Diego, Delgado and Medina 2013). The research statistical tool used in this case is the Descriptive analysis method which is defined as the summary of the findings of the research in a summarised way to find out the information regarding the social findings of the Yoga Retreat in Cambodia.
The findings of this research study would be helpful for the researcher to understand the significance of the spread of Yoga tourism in Cambodia. The research objectives set in the course of this research proposal helps in understanding the industrial influence of Yoga as a potential industry emerging in the global community. Moreover, the research study also sheds light on how a communication mix might be established in order to establish the importance of Yoga tourism to support community welfare and wellbeing.
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