Chapter 1: Mapping the Research Trends on Sports Tourism and Sustainability: A Bibliometric Analysis

The aim of this chapter is to examine research trends in sports tourism and sustainability. Sports tourism is a form of travelling from one region to another to attend a sporting event of any kind. Sports tourism is an emerging new category of tourism that has grown rapidly over the past decade. Properly developed and regulated, tourism can help meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a sub-sector of tourism, sports tourism contributes to long-term growth in a unique way due to its specific characteristics. Through a bibliometric review of 157 research publications published over the past 19 years (2002–2021) in the research area of sports tourism and sustainability, this study extracts valuable insights from research trends, co-citation and keyword analysis. This study uses the indexed Scopus database to identify the articles published on this topic. The VOS viewer software was used to analyse further upcoming research topics. The results showed that interest in the concept of these subjects increased, especially after 2011 and 2018. This is a very young research area, and the first work was published in 2002; however, very little research has been done in this area since then. Despite significant progress in this research domain since 2010, substantial linkages between theme areas have yet to be discovered. There is a widespread shortage of researchers and publications. Many publications in this area have emerged as a result of commemorating major sporting events or announcing SDGs. Dealing with important research topics, such as sustainable tourism, environmental sustainability, innovation, sports sponsorship and social sustainability, which should be investigated in the future, is an essential contribution to this process.