In 2017, Anna Egleston used Instagram, her expertise in guest hospitality and marketing, and passion for yoga to launch her first retreat with Above Yoga. "For the next few years, I ran one retreat annually and scouted locations continuously. I routinely used up all my corporate job vacation time to run this ‘side hustle’," says Anna.

Anna took Above Yoga around the world, including Mexico and France, and wanted experiencing different cultures to be an integral part of the retreat. "Unlike many similar offerings…[this] is more about the cultural and community aspect of exploring another country than it is about the yoga classes," Anna says. "We have long-standing, personal relationships with many of our local vendors and guides. This makes our guests feel more like cherished family, rather than everyday tourists."

After an inspiring scouting trip in Cambodia in 2019, Anna took a leap and turned Above Yoga into her full-time gig. "As you might imagine, 2020 was an incredibly tough year to try to run a group travel company," she says, "but after a long pause and lots of precautions set in place, I pushed through and began running retreats again in the fall of 2021."

Once Above Yoga got back on track, Anna had to reconsider her systems and platforms. "Before I found Easol, I had tried several combinations of websites and payment platforms," Anna says, requiring her to "manually make each person an invoice for their remaining balance and send them out individually." 

In order to expand the retreat business, Above Yoga switched to Easol, unlocking the power of an all-in-one platform designed for experiences and fuelled by automations. "Most sales platform website providers are built for products-based businesses," Anna says. "I felt what made Easol different was that it was not just for service-based businesses, but especially for experiences."

Above Yoga has since increased its annual number of guests by 5x. "Before transitioning to Easol, I was running about 1-2 retreats a year with a total of 15-25 guests," Anna says.  Now, "I am often running an average of 6-8 retreats a year with a total guest count of 125-150 annually." 

"I thought it would be nearly impossible to run this business full-time and become a mom, but Easol has made so much of the heavy lifting easier," Anna says. "If I was still trying to manage the guest booking, payment and planning process manually, there's no chance I could handle the volume of work while also starting a family. I'm due in a few months, and I'm so thankful that I have been with Easol for 2+ years, and the systems are all in place to make the transition seamless!"

Here how Above Yoga uses Easol to create, manage and sell out retreats.

Fully customisable selling experience

It’s important to streamline the operational load as your business expands, and Easol makes it easy to set up and manage repeated trips, for example, so you can spend less time on setup and more time on growth.

Anna says she would not have been able to achieve 500% growth, nor keep up with the work that demands without Easol: "I could not have managed the booking and invoicing of that many people and retreats without a lot of the automation Easol provides." 

Above Yoga can customise key areas of its experience offerings and website design so it has full control over the customer experience while streamlining key admin on the business-end. Anna shares some examples of Easol features that have worked best for Above Yoga: "Allowing guests to book based on room type (and even adjust pricing from single to double occupancy within a room) was very helpful for me. I also was able to add a check box that allows people to agree to my terms and conditions at check out [, instead of] having them sign a paper waiver on-site. The ability for guests to log into their portal and see how much they owe and make payments at any time is really helpful."

Flexible and automated payment systems

For high-value retreats like Above Yoga, deposits and payment plans are critical workflow tools. With Easol, not only can you customise these flexible payment options, but also all payment reminders are processed automatically. 

"Staying on top of invoicing the remainder of an experience cost after the deposit and managing those invoices manually for each customer was a huge challenge," Anna says. "The ability for guests to log into their portal and see how much they owe and make payments at any time is also really helpful."

Anna adds: "Easol has revolutionised how the administrative and invoicing side of my business is run. It has automated a lot of systems I previously tried to manage manually, which has allowed me to expand without additional workload."

Seamless guest management

Another key automation that enabled Above Yoga to scale its retreat business is its guest management features. Because Easol brings website, payments bookings and customer communications into one platform, many operational workflows are integrated and communicate with each other seamlessly. .

"I used to manually send a welcome email to guests after they’ve signed up, and I constantly had to update the room types left after people booked," Anna says. "Now Easol does all of that for me."

Above Yoga is able to collect guest information, such as flight details and dietary requirements, before and after checkout automatically. This also allows business managers to export all relevant data into shareable spreadsheets with partners and vendors.

Discover the new way to sell retreats

Looking to streamline your retreat business? Book a demo today and discover how the platform can grow your sales and supercharge your experience business.

Elyse McAvoy

Product Marketing Manager

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