The Ultimate Guide to International Retreats and Legal Compliance

Summary
In this episode, Holly Porter interviews Kate Kurdziej, a business strategist specializing in retreat planning. They discuss how retreat hosts can confidently fill their retreats, legal considerations, and the importance of strategic planning for international retreats.




Takeaways
Retreat strategy and planning
Legal and compliance considerations for retreats
International retreat logistics and marketing



Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the International Retreat Association
02:51 Kate Kurdziej: Journey into the Retreat Industry
05:43 Understanding the Importance of Compliance in Retreats
08:40 Navigating Legalities and Responsibilities
11:30 Raising Standards in the Retreat Industry
14:25 Overcoming Barriers to Hosting Retreats
17:18 Strategies for Successful Retreat Hosting
20:14 Learning from Experience: The First Retreat
23:14 Rapid Fire Questions and Final Thoughts



🔗 Connect with Kate Kurdziej | Olivier Consultancy
📧 Email: kate@olivier-consultancy.co.uk
📩 Personal Email: katekurdziej@gmail.com
🌐 Website: Olivier Consultancy – Retreat Planning Consultancy
🔗 LinkedIn: Kate Kurdziej
📸 Instagram: @kate_kurdziej
🎁 Free Resource: The First Five Steps to Your Sell-Out Retreat
In less than 10 minutes, Kate walks you through the first five decisions you need to make before launching a retreat to help set you on the path toward a sold-out experience.
🔗 Guide Link: https://olivier-consultancy.co.uk/five-steps-to-your-sell-out-retreat/


🔗 Connect with Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
📧 Email: holly@hollyporter.com 
🔗 LinkedIn: Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
🎵 TikTok: @retreatrnr 
▶️ YouTube: @retreatrnr 
📸 Instagram: @retreatrnr | @hollyporterinternational 
📘 Facebook: HollyAnnPorter

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast. I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R. With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats. I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences. Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here. Enjoy the ride. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, welcome to the show today. We're gonna be having more discussions on retreats. Of course, we're called all things retreat for a reason. But we had an exciting week, I have to say, last week. We launched International Retreat Association. So the live and website is all it's live, and you can go there now and check it out, international retreatassociation.com. And you will be so surprised at everything that's going to be happening there and behind the scenes. So stay tuned. There'll be more announcements coming on for that. But if you want to go check it out, I can actually officially give the website out now. Um, we have the membership open for basic members. By the way, it's only $111 for the whole year. Like I don't know a membership that's cheaper than that for a whole year. I wanted to make sure it was affordable so all retreat leaders can play in this space. We'll have more things coming out later, but that and our founding memberships are the only things that we opened up right now. So go check them out. Again, international retreatassociation.com. No, international. Yeah, I said it right. International Retreat Association.com. All right, we have a fabulous guest again today. Her name is Kate Kerjay, and she is coming all the way from Spain. She's a double award-winning business consultant, and she creates the strategy and structure for retreat hosts who want to design price and sell out their retreat with clarity and confidence without relying on last-minute bookings or risking large venue deposits. I can tell you're all leaning in already. Kate isn't just a retreat strategist, she also hosts business retreats for female founders who are ready to gain clarity and action plan for scaling their business. Okay, welcome to the show, Kate. Thank you very much, Holly. Excited to be here. We had a little chat before. You know, it's always fun to get to know people a little bit before you actually have them on your show. And um, she listened to me in my big fat rant. So thank you for that. Um, you know, we all have these little little fun challenges in business and life, and and with launching something as big as International Retreat Association, yeah, it's it's been it's been a great journey. I'm proud, happy, uh, and stressed, obviously. So here we are. But let's just get into it. Um, I know our retreat leaders mostly are our gay are our listeners, and we try to bring them people that will give value to what they're doing in their business. Retreat leaders are so broad. Like you think about it, a retreat leader could be any business if you really think about it. And I love to say to people that aren't doing retreats. So if you're new here or you're thinking about it, so listen in because I think Kate's gonna share some fabulous nuggets with us. I've got some great questions for her, and uh, I think you're gonna learn a lot. So maybe get a pen, pen, paper, pencil, paper, whatever, float your boat. And let's dive in. All right. So, Kate, you help retreat hosts create strategy and structures so that they can confidently fill retreats without the stress and chaos. How did you get into the retreat industry in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Okay, so as you said, I am a business consultant by trade. That's my kind of thing that I've been doing for years and years and years for myself. Um, but since moving to Spain a couple years ago, I kind of stumbled, if you like, into the retreat world. So I'd never considered it for myself before, as in I'd never considered hosting before, but I'd helped already loads of my clients launch and host retreats globally. And then I got here and it just felt like such a wonderful place, and people were hosting wellness events, wellness retreats. I live by the Mediterranean, so it's very therapeutic here, and a lot of people are interested in health and well-being and move from there, maybe countries of origin here because they want a better life, a slower life. People are starting to think about maybe early retirement, and there's just a there's just a group, a vibe here, and I think there is in Spain generally, but of people living slower and taking better care of themselves. Um, so I naturally started to do that as well. And then one day I was sitting with my mum actually in a lovely restaurant overlooking the sea, and I put a photo on my Instagram stories, and I said, Oh, do you want to come along with me for my? I think it was like a five-course tasting menu. Um, and I meant, I'll just take a picture of every course and put it in my stories, right? And just, you know, get some engagement and chat to my um clients and my audience. And I had like probably six or seven DMs saying, Oh, I thought you were inviting us to come to Spain. And I was like, hmm, that's an interesting concept. And I'd still not really considered it. I kind of felt like, but it's the big coaches, it's the big wellness gurus that host retreats. Like I'd never really thought like little old me could host one. And then I put a poll in my stories and said, Go on, let's see who'd be up for it. And it was like an overwhelming amount of people that said, Yes, yes, yes, I would love to be there with you by the Mediterranean. I'm a business strategist, so you know I'd I'd focus it on business strategy retreats and just getting a bit of space away from your business. Um, and yeah, sold out and have continued to sell out ever since. My last retreat sold out in 30 minutes because I had a wait list, and you know, they're small, intimate containers, but I realized that this is something that I'm very good at. And then people started asking me, I want to do it, I want to sell out, I want to host retreats, and you know, how can I do it? How can I learn from you? And you know, voila, this is what I do, this is what I help people with. No. And so when you do retreats now, are you teaching this at the retreat? No, so my retreats are still very much centered on business strategy for my original client base, actually, from my consulting, so that's sort of service provider. So it could be people that wanted to host retreats, but generally it's anyone from HR to accountants to virtual assistants to marketing consultants, anyone that wants to scale their business in a kind of life first. Mine is always life first strategy. So, how can I make it enjoyable? So, yes, it could be retreat hosts. That's maybe something that I do. It's a little bit like what's that film with Leonardo DiCaprio, like Inception or something, where it's like a retreat for retreat hosts. I feel like you could go down that route, couldn't you? Sure. Of teaching retreat hosts on retreat. No, this my my retreats are business strategy. They're called Sun Sea and Strategy, and it's for service providers to work on their businesses. Um, and then my other arm of the business is retreat strategy for retreat hosts. So it's all under the umbrella of retreat.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Right, absolutely. And how long, how many years has it been now?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Uh I'm in my third year now. Um, and yeah, absolutely loving it. Plan to do more and more and more, and it's just something that I think because I moved abroad as well, that kind of travel element and that international logistics is like something that completely lights me up. So if someone's like wanting to plan, you know, flights or you know, right, how could I get people at what point do I need to release these dates because people need to plan international travel? I'm like, right, this is when we should do this and this and this, and it just, yeah, my brain works like that. It kind of like it ticks ticks all of the boxes for me. It's not just events, it's like retreats internationally. It's kind of within that.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Well, we can't wait to have you part of International Retreat Association. Yeah, it'll be great. I'm excited to get all these international people part working with us and creating something that hasn't ever been created before.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So something that's really, I'm kind of like on a bit of a path at the moment with it because I'm really trying to understand on a deeper level about the compliance requirements and legalities of retreats. And it's it's actually quite complex when you dig into it. So I want to make sure that you know everyone understands what their obligation obligations are with retreats. You know, when you're hosting a group of people, you need to, there are responsibilities. So it's really important with insurances and contracts and you know, compliance requirements along the whole process, and you know, venue deposits and cancellation terms and all of these kind of things, like yeah, they're they're kind of big things. And actually, if you don't have somebody that knows what they're talking about and you are new to it, um, you can do some damage, and it's it's not something that should, you know, retreats should be fun and they should be an enjoyable part of your business and a great way to make liability though, definitely. Absolutely. So I think there's there's risk associated, and kind of mitigating risk is really important, but you know, just being aware of it is the first step.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And I want to say to the listeners, don't let that scare you either. It like make it be just be aware, just kind of tuck that in the back of your head that as you're getting your skills down and you're learning and how this whole industry goes, just think, you know, okay, I gotta make sure there's more to this. There's there's insurance, there's travel things, there's there's a lot of things depending if you're going out of the country, definitely that changes things. Different states have different you know policies in the United States and I'm sure international.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah, I mean, I generally work with with UK and EU clients for for this kind of thing. So for my retreat strategy, because there are certain compliance requirements around the UK and EU, which will be similar, but probably just incrementally different across every single country in the world. So it's really important that you just count this as one of those things when you're planning the retreat. It's one of the things that you need to approach and tackle and move through. And just as you would tick off which caterer you're using, you need to tick off the legals as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

I mean, that's kind of in the back of my mind. I have so many plans for the for the association. And that's in the back of my mind thinking, oh, wouldn't it be great to have a database where clickable links where you can go find out about each country and we have information there for you and they use and like could just not just the networking and connecting other people to other people all over the world, but just figuring out these kind of things. So I love that. Um, yeah, there's just there's no standard.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

I mean, that's one of the things before we got on the podcast, Holly, when you were like, Oh, I'm starting this thing, and I said, Oh, I'm really interested to find out because I want to be part of like raising the standards in the retreat industry. I think it's really important to bring everyone along with you. But part of that is education and you know, understanding and awareness of of what the what the gold standard is, and then we all work towards it. You know, there's no magic wand, we can't just all suddenly become compliant. But actually, if we know where we're heading, it makes it so much easier. And if you have people that can explain that to you because they've been there or they understand it on a deeper level, like I have a background in operations and compliance, so it makes more sense to me when I talk about legals, you know, to have people in that community, you know, in your community that that can articulate that, I think is really useful to raise the standards.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Right. Well, we do have policies, procedures, standards that we have created for the association already. Anyone can go read them, they're at the bottom of the website. Um, but you actually have to agree to them, just like you know how when you sign up for something, you're agreeing to terms and conditions. How many of us read that? But I hope that retreat leaders will understand that we have created those. They may be changing as we grow and as we feel like there's more you know standards that need to be involved. These are basic ones that we came up with in the beginning. Um, anyway, so yeah, we'd love feedback on that, but we do hope people read them, but you may have to update them later because it, you know, as things change and grow. I'm super uh innovative. So, like if if there's a better way, my way is not the only way, and definitely not always the best way. So it's like expensive.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

I think we're always we're always learning as well. And there's always I hope. I hope so, but we can always improve, you know, as long as you are doing your best at that point, you know, especially when it comes to legals, insurances, and planning of the retreat. We want to take care, or I certainly hope that my clients, when they host their retreats, that they want to take care of their guests. But for me, that extends way beyond just the session that you're delivering or the retreat week. Like it's so much bigger than that. And I think, you know, for the for the price that somebody is paying to come on a retreat, we it can we kind of owe it to them to actually look after their money, store it in a separate client funds account, you know, look all of these other things that we need to do. I think that that's part of being a good retreat host is looking after your client.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Well, a lot of people dream about hosting retreats. Most of our listeners are retreat leaders already, but you know, so think back if you're listening back when you were just a wee person and thinking, I want to be a retreat leader. And you know, a lot of people think about it and then they just don't take action, which is just life, I've noticed, right? I kept thinking, why isn't there an association? You know, with two to three million estimated retreat leaders, why is there not an association for them to belong to? So I I guess it was waiting for me to create it. So I did. But I think a lot of people had the idea and just didn't take the action. So bringing that back in, what do you think holds most people back from taking action and just doing these things? So let's use that also, answer two things. Why they don't do it in the first place? Most of our people already are that are listening. And why do you think that they don't think bigger? Like, oh, I'm never gonna be able to go international.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

So kind of can you answer both of those? Okay, so why they don't do it in the first place? I think often clients come to me when they're not actually ready. So, you know, that's that's something that I think it it almost is like a pipe dream for some people. And that it's like, wouldn't it be lovely if I could host a retreat? And it never quite gets past the pinning a venue on Pinterest, or you know, maybe messaging some retreat venues, and then they find out the cost and they go, Oh, like how could I possibly, how could I sell these spaces? And then I think self-doubt creeps in, or a lack of commercial understanding about how can I actually make money. And well, you probably know as well, you can make money from retreats, that's totally possible. A lot of people make a lot of money from the retreat uh business, but there is a kind of process to it, and there, you know, that if you're lacking that commercial awareness and commercial understanding of retreats, then the whole process can feel, I think, quite overwhelming because you've got people, you've got potentially different countries, you've got sessions to plan, caterers. And I think if you've never, even if you're in business already, if you've never dealt with that in-person um event style of things, that feels totally different. And I think a lot of people work online, or maybe they're a yoga teacher that just does like one-hour sessions somewhere, and it's like, how do you how do you then spend a week with some with a group of 10 people that you don't know? So I think there's so many questions at that point of like bringing it from vision to reality that it almost feels quite overwhelming for people. Um, and that's that's how I help my clients try and like break it down into like right, this is the process. And there's quite a clear timeline to retreat launch. So as long as you follow a process to it, you can do it. But I think if you haven't got that process, that roadmap in front of you, there's so many questions, and you know what it's like in life. Generally, if you've got so many questions, it's like buyer indecision, like you're not gonna choose anything, you're not gonna choose to do anything. You just confusion. Yeah, I'll look again next year, even though nothing's gonna change next year. Yeah. And I think to answer your second question, like, why can't they go? You know, what would stop them from going bigger? Well, I think a lot of people, maybe, maybe I don't know if this is the same in the US, but the idea of international travel for many people, certainly if they haven't traveled a lot, can feel quite big as well. So I think it's a common answer, probably, for both of those questions is that it presents new problems or new challenges. And unless you're somebody that just smashes through challenges anywhere and just think I'll work out as I go, there's plenty of people like that. But most people aren't. Most people want to have the security of understanding what to do and what comes next. So I think as soon as you get presented with a circumstance or a scenario that you aren't familiar with or comfortable with, like international travel or maybe like legals in different countries, you're you're not going to approach that if you don't have the support next to you to feel like you know what you're doing or can handle it. So I think that blocks people, but international retreats are so incredible for your clients because they're they're leaving their kind of place, their home, their family, you know, their maybe their local town, their local area, and actually traveling out and traveling out of the country. And that in itself, for your kind of your own brain and mental health, is amazing to remove yourself and go somewhere different and experience new cultures and new food and you know, new weather, new climate, totally different. And I think it it it is a great way to to host retreats internationally. But I do think there is a bit of a pathway, if you like. So I think if you've never hosted anything in person, I personally wouldn't recommend going straight to like a seven-day retreat.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

No, no, take a break.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Exactly that. And I think through it, working through your own tolerance to you know, because there's a couple of issues here. Like we've got the planning and logistics and operational kind of challenges to work through, which the more you do, you get better at it anyway. So, you know, I always think with first-time retreat hosts, it's gonna feel a little bit harder, but it will feel so much easier the next time, the next time, and the next time. The first time's the hardest. And then you've got the idea of actually like your own energy around people. And you know, I've I spoke to somebody recently on a retreat, a personal retreat for myself, and she said, Oh, yeah, I hosted a retreat once, I didn't like it, blah, blah. She'd mentioned all of these things. And I said, Well, first of all, it doesn't really sound like a retreat. I wouldn't count that as a retreat, it sounded more like an intensive kind of experience for her clients. Um, I she said, Yeah, I just didn't like being around all those people for so long and you know, not being able to get away. And I was like, that's really interesting because if you'd worked your way up, you would have known that probably three years ago. If you'd done a day retreat, you would have known that very, very quickly that you have a social battery and you need to get away from people and so on and so forth, which you can still do on retreat, but you need to know that you need to plan in time to be away from your guests and retreat yourself from constantly hosting people, you know, 20 hours a day. So, yeah, there's a lot of lessons, and I think you can you can make it so much easier for yourself by working through a process.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

I agree. What um give us about three different little things that you think helped you because you you are lucky in the fact that you filled them so fast. I mean, you have a desirable location, that's a big deal. A lot of people want to come there. They hear about Spain and Mediterranean and especially especially Americans, right? We're like, get us out of here. Um what would you say were the top three things that you did that you think helped you fill them? Because I know people are struggling with that right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah. Okay, so first thing I did was not put a venue deposit down, not rush to book anything. I just took stock and did that whole phase, even though I wanted to go and book somewhere of just expression of interest. Gauging, gauging, if this is of commercially viable service, like I'm a business consultant, my brain works like that, so I'm not gonna just rush in and do something unless I can be sure that this makes financial sense and this is what I want to be doing as well. Because you know, I don't want to be pushed into something, it wasn't actually my idea originally in the first place. So I kind of took stock and thought, actually, if I'm gonna make this happen, then it needs to happen at this price point, it needs to happen in this kind of area. So the expression of interest has been crucial in that first stage, but kind of leading into point number two, probably, is just constantly having a wait list, constantly having a wait list. And all year round, I advertise the wait list. So I'm not always selling the retreat, I'm always getting more people on the wait list.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

And it's that is not who's interested.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Absolutely key for me because the last thing you want to do is launch a retreat and not know if anyone's interested, not have a very audience to launch to like it's all just you know basic fundamental things that you can do. So gauge interest, build a wait list. And then I think the third thing was certainly on that first retreat, I kind of planned as much as I could, but almost left space for me to move around and see what was happening and not just be in like host delivery mode all the time, is actually give myself space in my own schedule to think like A, I need a rest. Yeah, we all have social batteries, I need to be away from my guests as well sometimes. But B, it gives me the opportunity to like I voice my note myself, like what's that voice notes during the week. So pick up on it afterwards, you know, is like right next time I would do it like this, blah, blah. So I can like give myself live little updates that I would never remember afterwards. But actually, on the day at the moment, I can actually voice note myself. So giving myself the opportunity to do that throughout the week, it meant that that first time that I did it was like a learning curve, and I gave myself the grace to learn. It didn't all have to be perfect, which from a recovering perfectionist was quite a feat for me. But it meant that I knew that I wasn't gonna get it right. It was my first time, I knew that I wasn't gonna do everything perfectly. Really, what is perfect on a retreat, you know, like as long as the guests are happy most of the time, that's absolutely what we're there for. But you know, treating it as a learning curve, and I see that a lot with my clients, they're like trying to get absolutely everything spot on, and I'm like, You never will that first time because you've not done it before, you're going to learn so much from this, and that's kind of the beauty in it as well. I think I think learning, we were talking about learning before, like learning is a good thing, you know, there's always something to teach you a lesson, and that means you can improve on it. You know, the first time I did it, I was getting feedback scores of like eight out of ten, nine out of ten. I think I got a 10 out of 10. The last time I did it, all 10 out of 10s. So it's you know, there's there's there's always room for improvement. And even with 10 out of 10s, I'm like, where can I improve? Where can I do better? Um, but you know, I think that's part of the journey as a retreat host as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I agree. Well, always be improving is super important. Um, all right, I have a few rapid forgot fire questions I like to end this with. So no right or wrong answer, just an answer.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Are you a morning person or night owl? Uh I think a morning person. I have a six-year-old son, so yeah, morning person these days. Do you do you like the mountains or the ocean better? Oceans, but mountains are very close second. One word that you would use to describe retreats. Expansive.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Expansive, not expensive, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Not expensive. Expansive. They can do that too. Yeah, maybe that's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Because you figured it out how to price it right.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Are you an introvert or extrovert?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I think I'm an introvert, but I'm kind of one of those extroverted introverts if you get me in the right situation.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

All right, last one. What is one thing every retreat host should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Oh my god. Making their sales page look like an Airbnb listing. You're not selling the venue, you're selling the experience and the transformation. Stop telling me about the sessions in the bedrooms.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Oh yes. Oh my gosh, that's a great one. I love it. Okay, this was a great conversation. I know everybody probably got at least two or three things that maybe they can do better or change in their retreat businesses themselves. Um, we are going to put your contact information in the show notes. Fully accessible and easy for people to grab. Is there any last words you would like to leave with our audience?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Give yourself permission to take your time over retreats. So don't make the mistake of going, I'm gonna launch a retreat in three months. Take your time, go through the phases of retreat launch and allow your business to come with you on that on that journey. Make sure that you are building interest before you put down any money.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Love that.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

That's some good advice, right there, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Write that down. Or listen to the replay and write it down. All right. Well, thanks again for coming and being and sharing your words of wisdom on our show. And we will see everybody on the next one. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Thanks, Holly. Bye-bye. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Thank you for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat. We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you. And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infoweretreatrnr.com. Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates. Until next time. Remember, great retreats start with great intentions. Let's make them extraordinary one step at a time. Thinking about hosting a retreat? Before you dive in, let's make sure you're really ready. Grab your free Are You Retreat ready checklist and find out if you've got everything in place from your purpose and pricing to your audience and agenda. Don't guess. Get clear. This quick checklist will show you exactly where you stand and what you need to make your retreat successful. Click the link below in the show notes to grab your gift and take the first step toward hosting this company.