VENUE OWNERS MASTERY
Six-Session 1:1 Coaching Programme for Retreat Venue Owners
WHY NOW ?
Retreat venues matter more than ever
We are living through a loneliness epidemic. Social connection has become a public health priority. In an unstable decade, people are not simply seeking information — they are seeking orientation, and the fastest route to it has always been human: gathering, ritual, proximity.
The retreat industry is the response to that hunger. It is the fastest growing sector in travel — not because people want better yoga or prettier views, but because they are starving for something real. A room where they are not performing. A few days where they remember who they are.
$6.3T
Global wellness economy
and growing year on year
#1
Fastest-growing in travel
outpacing hotels & adventure tourism
$6.3T
Global wellness economy
and growing year on year
The science behind this is clear. When people gather in person, nervous systems do not simply enjoy the moment — they co-regulate. Breath, tempo, attention and emotional tone begin to align. A well-designed experience is not decoration. It is a neurological event. The venues that understand this — that treat the retreat experience as architecture, not atmosphere — are the ones that will lead it.
The programme - Built entirely around your venue
The Venue Owner Mastery Programme is a six-session 1:1 coaching engagement with Polly Moore and Shaun Treloar of The Retreat Academy. It's built entirely around your venue — your specific space, your vision, and where you want to take it.
This is not a course with a fixed curriculum. It is a focused, responsive coaching relationship that draws on 20 years of experience operating at the highest levels of the retreat world — from both sides of the relationship, as venue owners and as retreat leaders.
The goal is to position your venue as a leading retreat destination: to build the business intelligence behind it, establish its own signature retreat, and create an identity so distinctive that other retreat venues follow where you have led.
Implementation is entirely in your hands. What we bring is the experience, the frameworks and the strategic thinking — what you build from it is yours to drive.
Six 1:1 coaching sessions — 90 minutes each, held online or in person, scheduled at a pace that suits you
Resources and frameworks introduced at the right moments for where you are in the work
Direct access to Polly and Shaun between sessions via WhatsApp — for immediate support, questions and decisions as they arise
An honest, experienced perspective on every aspect of the business — including the things that are harder to hear
The Curriculum
The six sessions
Session 1
Positioning, Identity & The Signature Retreat
The foundation everything else is built on. We begin by establishing your venue's unique identity in the premium retreat market — and within that, we lay the groundwork for your venue's own signature retreat.
Defining your venue's positioning and identity in the market
Understanding your ideal retreat leader client — and how to find them
Pricing strategy: setting rates that reflect the quality of the experience
Crafting the story of the land in language that resonates with discerning retreat leaders
Creating your venue's brand narrative — the story that attracts press and the right retreat leaders
Session 2
Building the Frameworks That Hold the Experience
A signature retreat is only as strong as the architecture beneath it. This session creates the frameworks — practical, experiential and operational — that let the retreat run with consistency, depth and excellence every time.
Designing the retreat arc — the shape of the experience from arrival to departure
Building the operational infrastructure that allows the retreat to run seamlessly
Developing the hosting standards and protocols that define your venue's experience
Establishing the guest journey — every touchpoint from enquiry to post-retreat follow-up
Frameworks for working with retreat leaders who bring their own programmes to the venue
Session 3
Delivering Excellence to Discerning Clientele
The retreat leaders who bring their clients to your venue are paying premium prices. They need to trust that you will champion their retreat, not just host it.
The art of the arrival — the moment a guest knows they are somewhere exceptional
Operational excellence: the systems, rhythms and standards that make it seamless
Working with retreat leaders as partners — understanding what they need
Managing the unexpected with grace — the protocols that protect host and guest
Session 4
Building Your Pipeline & Visibility
A venue of this calibre should never depend on one booking season or a handful of relationships. This session builds the strategy that creates sustainable, consistent demand.
Building a retreat leader pipeline that works year-round
Press and editorial strategy — attracting coverage alongside the world's finest venues
Social media with intention — without losing what makes the venue private
Strategic partnerships with retreat leaders, wellness brands and aligned organisations
Session 5
Financial Clarity & Business Sustainability
Your venue is a business as well as a place. This session brings rigour and clarity to its financial architecture.
Revenue modelling: understanding what full occupancy looks like and how to get there
Pricing structures, seasonal strategy and yield management
Financial planning across the year — peaks, troughs and the buffers that protect the business
Contracts, terms and the legal foundations every premium venue needs
Session 6
Authority, Selectivity & The Power of the Standard
The final session is about arrival — not of guests, but of your venue into its full authority as a destination that knows precisely what it is and what it will not compromise. This is also the session most venue coaching programmes never teach.
Understanding the energetic role of a retreat venue — and why boundaries are sacred, not defensive
How to set clear expectations with retreat leaders before they arrive
The language of discernment — how to decline the wrong enquiries clearly and warmly
Setting boundaries around your own time, energy and recovery as a venue owner and host
Positioning your venue as an authority voice in the premium retreat world
Who We Are
20 years, both sides of the relationship
The Retreat Academy was founded by Polly Moore and Shaun Treloar — two coaches with 20 years of shared experience operating at the highest levels of the retreat world, from both sides of the relationship: as venue owners, and as retreat leaders.
Polly & Shaun have spent 20 years running retreat venues and leading retreats — including Tilton House in Sussex, featured in The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveller, Tatler, Harper's Bazaar, The Guardian and Die Zeit — and ERTH, a historic private peninsula venue on the Devon/Cornwall border.
Polly Moore
An award-winning BBC producer, including the BBC News rebrand, bringing exacting standards in brand, positioning and communications — and a deep understanding of what it takes to build something people feel before they fully understand it.
Shaun Treloar
An award-winning creative producer with a background in advertising, bringing exacting standards in brand, positioning and communications — and a deep understanding of what it takes to build something people feel before they fully understand it.
Together they bring a perspective that is rare in the coaching world: the experience of having built and run extraordinary venues, and the creative intelligence to help others do the same.
The Investment
£7,500
An instalment option is available on request
To put this in context: a single high-season week at a premium venue commands upwards of €15,000. The strategies and positioning work within this programme are designed to help you fill more of those weeks, at the right rates, with the right people. Correctly implemented, the return on this investment is measurable within the first season.
One well-positioned, properly priced high-season booking more than covers the investment in this programme. The frameworks you build here compound across every season that follows.
Your venue has something that cannot be built from scratch — a relationship with land, a sense of place, a history that people can feel. Our role is to help you take that and build something around it that is equally extraordinary in its commercial intelligence and its vision.
Polly Moore & Shaun Treloar
The Retreat Academy — theretreatacademy.org
Client stories
Erin Dusek - Gratitude Retreat
I found The Retreat Academy at a time when I was desperately in panic mode about my retreat, realising I had a vision and a dream but no idea how to strategise it into physical form. Polly and Shaun and they answered my prayers!
Not only did they make me feel safe, supported and understood but they provided me with the tools I needed to attract my ideal client and hone in on my niche, taught me about aligned sales, and all the dos and donts for running retreats.
Sama Trinder - Bhuti London
Dearest Polly, You have been making such a difference through all that you do. Congratulations to all the women you have inspired and supported to creative transformative retreats including me, love being in your supportive group, helping me to create new retreats. I highly recommend your retreat training and all that you did for me in the last year. Thanks always for your encouragement and wisdom, loving your programme so much, launching our Bhuti London retreat in January.
Karen Sutton - Widow Coach
Being part of the Retreat Academy with Polly and Shaun has been invaluable in helping me create a retreat that offers everything I want it to offer for my clients… it wasn't until I started planning it that I realised how much there is involved and how much guidance I would actually need. Without Polly and Shaun's support I would be feeling incredibly overwhelmed at the prospect of holding a weekend retreat, and i would have made a lot of decisions that wouldn’t have supported my desires. But, I’m feeling calm and confident that this really is going to be a weekend that will change peoples grieving journeys for the better, and that is priceless to me.
Thank you Polly and Shaun for creating this powerful and nurturing space and sharing all your knowledge with us. It would have taken me a long time, and a lot of retreats, to create what I want to create but doing it with you by my side means I can miss out making a lot of mistakes.
Claire Darlow - Move Into Wellness
I booked onto the Retreat Mastery straight away as I knew it was perfect for me, with where I was in my retreat host journey so far. It wasn’t a mistake as the mastery guided me through a systems lead approach to running retreats but with a heart centre to ensure my integrity was always in focus.
My passion for running retreats could still be present whilst exploring all the nuts and bolts of retreat systems and practices which is so important, as without that you can burn out. I came away with so much insight and ideas and I’m still referring back to my notes and ideas and will do for a long time. I can’t recommend the retreat mastery enough and hope to attend again in the future.