Holistic Holidays: Tourism And The Reconciliation of Body, Mind and Spirit

This paper will explore on the current trend towards spiritual tourism, focusing on the quest for the enhancement of self through physical, mental and creative activities. This will include, for example, reference to holistic holidays, yoga tourism, ashram visits, and certain kinds of religious and pilgrimage tourism. The paper will provide an analysis of the factors that have created a need for personal and collective engagement in such forms of tourism. It will be argued that the postmodern era of global capitalism has, in many Western developed countries, created a feeling of existential angst or alienation amongst its citizens. Long working hours and the fragmentation of communities and traditions have exacerbated feelings of isolation, depression and stress. Individuals are consequently starting to seek solace in activities which enhance their physical, mental and spiritual well-being (e.g., yoga, pilates, meditation, ayurvedic treatments, aromatherapy, health spas). Many use travel as a form of escapism or as a quest to reconcile body, mind and spirit in a way that they can rarely do at home. Tourists are increasingly being drawn away from the materialistic, secular environments that they have been complicit in creating, towards simpler and natural environments in which they can attempt to be more of themselves. Drawing on a range of sources including academic and travel literature, popular fiction and promotional materials, the author will explore the way in which the ‘holistic’ tourism sector is developing. Although the analysis will focus partly on commercial developments, it will also address some of the more philosophical and religious questions that underpin this current trend. The need for escapism through travel is by no means a modern day phenomenon, nor is the personal or social alienation that renders it necessary or desirable. Throughout the centuries, writers, poets, and philosophers have often felt the need to travel to escape the malaise of the age or to assuage their own restlessness. The French poet Baudelaire would frequently set off on journeys in the vain hope of escaping the ‘spleen’ of contemporary living; Flaubert went in search of the exotic; Wordsworth sought the sublime. The Grand Tour of the 17th and 18th Century afforded the young noble the chance to enhance his personal and cultural growth through travel, and pilgrimages have traditionally enabled travellers to experience enlightenment, or physical and spiritual healing.