By: Alex Cooper
As retreats continue to grow in popularity around the world, industry veteran Holly Porter believes the people behind them deserve something they have never truly had before: a professional home.
That vision led Porter to found the International Retreat Association, an organization dedicated to bringing together retreat leaders, venues, facilitators, wellness professionals, and industry partners under a single umbrella. While the retreat industry has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, Porter says many of the professionals driving that growth have often found themselves working in isolation.
After more than 25 years of producing events and retreats, Porter witnessed firsthand the powerful impact retreats can have on people’s lives. Whether focused on wellness, personal development, leadership, education, or transformation, retreats have become an increasingly important part of how people learn, heal, reconnect, and grow.
Yet despite the industry’s expansion, Porter saw a significant gap.
“There was no central professional organization bringing the industry together,” she explains. “Retreat leaders were often operating in isolation. Venues were struggling to connect with qualified retreat hosts. Facilitators and service providers had no common hub for collaboration. Everyone was working hard, but often working alone.”
Recognizing the need for greater connection, Porter created the International Retreat Association to serve as a professional organization focused on community, collaboration, credibility, and long-term industry growth.
Unlike many organizations operating within the retreat space, the Association was not designed as a certification program, coaching platform, or educational course provider. Instead, its mission is to support the broader retreat ecosystem by helping professionals build relationships, share resources, discover opportunities, and learn from one another.
Porter believes that many established industries benefit from professional associations that help set standards, facilitate networking, encourage best practices, and advocate for the people who work within them. She saw no reason the retreat industry should be any different.
“The retreat industry deserves the same level of professional infrastructure that exists in other industries,” says Porter. “Our goal is to connect people, amplify voices, create partnerships, and help the industry mature in a healthy and sustainable way.”
As retreats become increasingly mainstream, Porter believes trust will play a critical role in the industry’s future. Participants often invest significant time, money, and emotional energy when attending retreats, making professionalism and integrity essential to creating meaningful experiences.
Rather than acting as a gatekeeper, the International Retreat Association aims to serve as a guide. Through education, collaboration, resource sharing, and conversations around best practices, the organization hopes to encourage transparency, professionalism, ethical leadership, and participant-centered experiences throughout the industry.
One of the Association’s most ambitious goals is bringing together groups that have historically operated separately. Retreat leaders, venues, facilitators, wellness practitioners, travel professionals, marketing experts, and service providers all play important roles in creating successful retreat experiences. Porter believes stronger connections among these groups will lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.
“When collaboration replaces competition, everyone benefits.”
That philosophy reflects a larger belief that the future of retreats will be built through relationships. By creating opportunities for professionals to connect, exchange ideas, and form partnerships, Porter believes the industry can innovate more quickly while delivering more impactful experiences for participants.
The launch of the International Retreat Association comes at a time when demand for retreats continues to grow across sectors such as wellness, leadership development, personal growth, entrepreneurship, and corporate culture. As more individuals and organizations embrace immersive experiences as tools for learning and transformation, the need for professional support and industry-wide collaboration continues to grow.
For Porter, success will not be measured solely by membership numbers. Instead, she envisions building a thriving global community where retreat leaders and industry professionals feel supported, connected, and empowered.
Over the next five to ten years, she hopes the International Retreat Association becomes the trusted voice and professional home for the retreat industry worldwide, a place where people come to build relationships, discover opportunities, access resources, share knowledge, and contribute to advancing the field.
Ultimately, Porter believes the organization’s impact will extend far beyond the industry itself.
“When retreat leaders are better supported, they create better experiences,” she says. “And when better experiences are created, more lives are transformed.”
For an industry built around connection, growth, and transformation, the International Retreat Association represents an effort to bring those same principles to the professionals working behind the scenes.
