Globally respected spirituality guru Deepak Chopra’s decision to trust a group of Vancouver investors to open the world’s first Chopra Yoga centre is raising Vancouver’s reputation as a global yoga hub.
The city, already known for being the headquarters for global yogawear giant Lululemon Athletica Inc., has had a dramatic rise in the number of yoga studios in the recent years. Increased competition, however, is not dampening yoga studio owners’ desire to keep opening new facilities.
Yyoga co-owner Terry McBride has built his business from a startup in 2008 to a seven-outlet chain of yoga studios with 350 staff and $8.5 million in revenue today. McBride told Business in Vancouver that he plans to open an eighth Yyoga location in Kitsilano in June and that he’s speaking with investors in Toronto about expanding Yyoga to Hogtown.
Bikram Yoga, which is an international brand licensed to more than a dozen people in Metro Vancouver, has 30 yoga studios in B.C., including one at City Square Mall on West 12th Avenue that Danny Dworkis opened in October. Dworkis opened B.C.’s first Bikram Yoga studio in 1999.
Semperviva Yoga co-owner Gloria Latham has also been successful. She told BIV that she has expanded her venture from one studio a decade ago to four studios today.
“Vancouver is becoming a mecca for yoga,” Latham said. “I think the [Chopra Yoga] centre will simply lend even greater awareness to the life-transforming practices of yoga and meditation.”
The yoga studio boom is North America-wide.
IBISWorld estimated that U.S. yoga and Pilates industry revenue would hit US$6.5 billion in 2011. That, according to the market research firm, would be 9.5% annual sales growth between 2006 and 2011.
Yoga studios are driving that growth. IBISWorld estimated that the number of American yoga studios is growing 7.5% annually and was set to hit 25,558 in 2011.
With so many studios, it makes business sense to offer something distinctive.
For investors behind Chopra Yoga, that means not only offering the name of a famous guru, but also straying from the norm by having a prominent 8,000-square-foot location adjoining the Granville Street SkyTrain station.
“We figure that we’re the only large-scale yoga studio that is on the ground floor. These studios are all on the second floor because rents are cheaper,” said Sharam Rafati, one of seven investors in the project who have contributed a total of $2 million to get the centre going. Large windows enable passersby to look into the centre. And an on-site Organic Lives juice bar (owned partly by mining mogul and philanthropist Frank Giustra) encourages potential customers to come in for a juice.
Rafati and his partners knew each other through family connections and all practise yoga. They started talking about launching a yoga centre in March 2009 and, a few months later, emailed Chopra.
Chopra was set to visit Whistler for a retreat and agreed to meet the investors, some of whom had taken courses at Chopra’s California-based Chopra Center.
“I don’t want people to think that this is just a business venture that we put together to make money,” Rafati said.
“The intention was to create something and bring something to the community that was missing.”
What other yoga studios lack, Rafati believes, is a spiritual link.
Chopra has written about 40 books, most of which deal with spirituality.
According to its website, his Chopra Center helps people “experience physical healing, emotional freedom and higher states of consciousness.”
Because Chopra Yoga is an extension of the Chopra Center, it has a similar green colour scheme and logo. Chopra Yoga can also offer staff discounts on Chopra Center courses, which can cost thousands of dollars.
But other yoga studio owners balk at the suggestion that their offerings lack a spiritual side.
Teachers lead students through yoga poses and help them focus on the pose so their mind doesn’t wander, said Dworkis, who pointed out that focused thought is in itself spiritual.
“There is beauty in allowing yoga to be a way for you to find your own spirituality whatever it might be,” added McBride.
“You should never dictate to someone what their spiritual path has to be.” •
