Sports

Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628
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Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman
Progress in Tourism Management
Progress in sports tourism research? A meta-review and exploration of futures

Mike Weed*,1
Centre for Sport, Physical Education & Activity Research (SPEAR), Canterbury Christ Church University, North Holmes Campus, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1QU, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 30 November 2008
Accepted 9 February 2009
This meta-review examines the journeys that previous reviewers of the eld of sports tourism have take
over the sports tourism research terrain. The contested nature of core concepts (terminology, categories
and the nature of the phenomena), dominant research areas (event sports tourism, a trend from impacts
to leveraging research, often poor quality behavioural research, destination marketing and media, and
resident perceptions), and the extent to which research is underpinned by, or rooted in, various subjects
and/or disciplines, are all discussed. Various futures envisaged by previous reviewers are identied; in
particular: management futures, knowledge futures, futures of the nature of sports tourism, and critical
and challenging futures. In conclusion, it is suggested that a clear indicator of the maturity of sports
tourism as a eld of study would be a comfortableness with the existence of contested perspectives and
ideas, and a reexive appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of research in the eld, particularly in
response to external challenges and critiques.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Sports tourism
Meta-review
Theory
Method
There is a temptation, perhaps even a tradition, when writing

reviews of research progress in particular elds of study, to present
an analysis or synthesis that is almost epiphanic in nature. The
tradition is to discuss research to date and to arrive at a conclusion
that research in the area has reached a turning point, or a stage of
maturity, that (amazingly fortuitously) co-incides exactly with the
time of writing of the review. And to propose that, thanks to
the epiphany facilitated by the review, from this point or stage the
future research needs or directions for the eld are now clear. The
reviewers job is done, the review itself is justied, and the eld can
now make signicant progress as its future direction has been
clearly laid out.
Such epiphanic reviews are assisted by the tendency to reify
elds of knowledge, using expressions like what the eld needs
or the eld has attempted to dene. Committing the pathetic
fallacy of endowing a eld with human emotions and with the
capability of agency renders more acceptable the suggestion of the
arrival of the eld at an epiphanic point where it realizes what it
needs to do to successfully develop in the future.
* Tel.: 44 1227 782743.

E-mail address: mike.weed@canterbury.ac.uk
1
Mike Weed is Professor of Sport in Society, Director of the Centre for Sport,
Physical Education & Activity Research (SPEAR) and Faculty Research Director for
the Faculty of Social & Applied Sciences at Canterbury Christ Church University. He
is Editor of the Journal of Sport & Tourism and his substantive research interests lie
in all aspects of the relationship between sport and tourism. Methodologically, he is
interested in the development and application of methods of research synthesis, in
the epistemology of qualitative research and in grounded theory.
0261-5177/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.02.002
Of course, the problem here, other than the philosophical one, is

that representing a reied eld as having an epiphany from which
the future is clear assumes (in fact requires) that there is a singular
view of past, present and future research activity, and that the
reviewer is simply collating and presenting such research in a way
that allows the epiphany to take place. Such reviews also invite the
collusion of others in a singular view by utilising a collective rst
person narrative suggesting, for example, that we have witnessed
the rapid recent development of our eld.
In contrast to the epiphanic approach, this review of research
relating to the relationship between sport and tourism presents
neither an epiphany, nor invites collusion in the discussions. In fact,
past, present and potential future research is presented as a contested terrain over which a range of previous reviewers have taken
different routes from different origins to arrive at different points in
the present, and from which they have seen different routes into
the future. That the journeys presented by previous reviewers are
so different is a function of, at various points in time: a lack of
coherence in research relating to sports tourism; a lack of agreement about fundamental concepts and assumptions about the
nature of the relationship between sport and tourism; the range of
perspectives of (or taken by) reviewers; the aims and objectives of
the reviews; and the nature of the processes of reviewing and/or
synthesising research itself. To avoid this paper becoming simply
another story of another journey through research, it will attempt
a slightly different task, namely a meta-review. A meta-review is,
quite simply, a review of reviews (c.f., Heal, 2008; Ruddy & House,
2005; Serenko & Bontis, 2004). In this case it will involve an
examination of the journeys previous reviews have taken through
616
M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628
research in the eld, and an interrogation of the explicit and

implicit decisions made by reviewers in conducting the reviews. In
this way it can explore the way in which, for example, conscious or
unconscious decisions about what research and perspectives have
been covered by the review have affected the journey the reviewer
has taken across the research terrain. As most reviews make some
comment on potential future research, this paper will also explore
the research futures suggested. In taking such an approach, the aim
is to present an historiographic and contemporaneous analysis of
progress in sports tourism.
1. Reviewing sports tourism research

Many reviews of the relationship between sport and tourism
commence with a comment on the respective sizes of the sport and
tourism industries and/or on the increasing convergence of sport
and tourism in the practice of providers and participants. Some also
comment on the growth of research and publications. In introducing the reviews included in this meta-review, some similar
comments are inevitable in explaining the time-span covered. It
appears that the rst publication relating to sports tourism was
published by the Central Council for Physical Recreation in 1966.
Entitled simply Sport and Tourism, it was written by Don
Anthony and offered some comments on the role sport might play
in holiday tourism (Anthony, 1966). In the twenty years following
that publication, other commentaries on the way in which sport
and tourism might relate to each other have appeared sporadically.
In 1970, Williams and Zelinsky highlighted the tourism generation
potential of mega-sports events such as the Olympic Games (Williams & Zelinsky, 1970), a theme that continues to the present day
(see, for example, Weed, 2008b). In fact, event sports tourism, as
well as being a signicant manifestation of the relationship
between sport and tourism, overlaps with another important eld
of enquiry, that of event tourism, which was recently the subject of
a similar progress review in this journal (Getz, 2008). Later in the
1970s the winter sports market in Scotland was noted as an
important tourism market niche by Baker and Gordon (1976) and,
of course, skiing and other winter sports are amongst the longest
standing sports tourism products (see Hudson, 2000). In 1982,
Glyptis examined sport and tourism in ve European countries and
compared these to the UK. Five demand categories were identied
and suggestions for policy made. Other studies throughout 1980s
tended to focus on the benets of staging major events along the
lines of the Olympic or Commonwealth Games or World Championships in the major sports such as Football and Athletics (Armstrong, 1985; Kolsun, 1988; Lazer, 1985; Livesey, 1990; Ritchie,
1984). These works emphasised the economic effect of the immediate and post-event tourism such events generate. There was also
a focus in 1980s on the potential of both sport and tourism to assist
in the regeneration of declining economies through the stimulation
of social and industrial development (Beioley, Crookston, & Tyrer,
1988; McDowell, Leslie, & Callicot, 1988). However, whilst the
period to 1990 had produced a number of studies relevant to
understanding the nature of the relationship between sport and
tourism, few studies existed that were about the relationship
between sport and tourism. For this reason, there were no real
reviews of the eld before 1990, as there was simply not enough
research to review. However, in the 18 years since 1990, there have
been 18 reports, articles, book chapters or books that in one way or
another might be considered reviews of the eld, and it is these that
comprise the source material for this meta-review.
Table 1 lists the 18 reviews in chronological order, together with
their key features, and a descriptive overview of these works is
perhaps useful before commencing a more detailed analysis.
The reviews comprise seven introductory overviews, four

market reviews, four narrative literature reviews, one narrative
discussion, one systematic review of literature, and an edited
reader of research papers. Not surprisingly, the introductory overviews (which span the full period covered by this meta-review) are
all chapters in edited books which are largely intended as student
introductions. The books themselves vary from focussing on social
aspects (e.g. Jackson & Weed, 2003, in Houlihan, Sport in Society),
through management or business (e.g. Gibson, 2003, in Parks &
Quarterman, Contemporary Sport Management; Weed, 2005a, in
Beech & Chadwick, The Business of Tourism Management), to
a more specialist focus on niche markets (e.g. Hall, 1992, in Hall &
Weiler, Special Interest Tourism), and this has obviously affected
the content of the reviews. Earlier in the period covered, the
reviews were based on the ways in which sport and tourism might
inter-relate, with a greater focus on how they inter-relate in more
recent chapters, although some of the earlier works did suggest
concepts and approaches that have regularly featured or been
adapted in the literature since. The same might be said of the four
market reviews, each of which was conducted in the rst eight
years of the 18 years covered by this meta-review. Like the early
introductory overviews, these market reviews suggested ways in
which sport and tourism might be linked for mutual benet.
However, they often differed from the introductory overviews in
that they focussed on market structure, using anecdotal or illustrative examples of interaction between sport and tourism to
suggest potential avenues for future linkage. One of these market
reviews was a book chapter, another a report for a policy agency,
with two being published in refereed journals. It is an indication of
the embryonic nature of research in the eld in these early years
that such descriptive market reviews were publishable as refereed
journal articles at the time, and an indication of the growth of
research in the eld since that they would not be acceptable to
refereed journals today. In fact, in the year after the last of the
market reviews was published, Weed (1999) labelled such reviews
as advocacy (seeking to establish recognition of a potential
relationship between sport and tourism), and noted that such work,
while useful in the early years of the development of research in the
eld, was perhaps no longer appropriate and suggested that
research on sports tourism might turn to providing evidence for the
nature and extent of the link, and to examining policy responses.
The four narrative literature reviews, which broadly span the
middle years of the period covered, focussed much more clearly on
the research literature as the source material for discussing the link
between sport and tourism. Indicative of the growth of research in
the eld, it is instructive that Jackson and Glyptis (1992) review
largely extrapolated issues relevant to sports tourism from more
general literature on sport, tourism, leisure and regeneration,
whilst the later reviews (Gibson, 1998, 2002; Weed, 1999) were
able to draw on source material that had been written about sports
tourism. These four reviews comprised a commissioned report for
a national agency, a refereed journal article and two published
conference keynote addresses, and it may well be the case that the
appearance of the latter three of these reviews in the public domain
at the turn of the century sparked a realisation among researchers
working in the eld that the descriptive market reviews published
in the preceding years were now obsolete given the wider availability of research evidence.
In 2001, the World Tourism Organisation and the International
Olympic Committee held a joint conference to discuss the relationship between sport and tourism. To support the event, the WTO
and IOC jointly commissioned an introductory report to the
conference (Keller, 2001). However, somewhat frustratingly, this
report drew on virtually none of the previous research evidence
that Gibson (1998) and Weed (1999) had identied three and two
617
Table 1
Reviews included in the meta-review.
Author(s)
Title
Publication
Basis of review
De Knop (1990)
Glyptis (1991)
Redmond (1991)
Hall (1992)
Jackson and Glyptis (1992)
Sport for All & Active Tourism

Sport & Tourism
Changing Styles of Sports Tourism
Adventure, Sport & Health Tourism
Sport & Tourism: A Worldwide Review of
the Literature
Sport & Tourism in South East England
Sport Tourism: A Critical Analysis of Research
An Overview of Sport Tourism: Building towards
a dimensional framework
More than Sports Holidays: An Overview of the
SportTourism Link
Sport and Tourism: Capitalising on the Linkage
Sport & Tourism: Introductory Report to
WTO/IOC Conference
Sport Tourism at a Crossroad? Considerations
for the Future
The SportTourism Interrelationship
Sport Tourism
Sports Tourism
Sports Tourism Research 20002004: A Systematic
Review of Knowledge and a Meta-Evaluation of Method
The Relationship Between Sport & Tourism
Sport & Tourism: A Reader
Journal Article
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Report
Market Review
Introductory Overview
Market Review
Narrative Literature Review
Report
Journal Article
Journal Article
Market Review
Market Review
Published Conference Keynote
Book Chapter
Report
Narrative Discussion
Published Conference Keynote
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Journal Article
Systematic Review of Literature
Book Chapter
Edited Reader
Collection of International Research
Standeven and Tomlinson (1994)

Gibson (1998)
Delpy (1998)
Weed (1999)
Chalip (2001)
Keller (2001)
Gibson (2002)
Jackson and Weed (2003)
Gibson (2003)
Weed (2005a)
Weed (2006)
Weed and Jackson (2008)
Weed (2008a)
years earlier. Consequently, this relatively long report (60 pages)

is perhaps best regarded as an anomaly in the development of
knowledge on the relationship between sport and tourism, and
a potentially harmful anomaly at that, as it was endorsed by the
worlds leading organisations for sport (IOC) and for tourism (WTO)
and it suggested and implied, through its lack of recognition of
previous work, that there was no research base from which to
understand the relationship between sport and tourism. For the
purposes of this meta-review, therefore, this report has been conceptualised as a narrative discussion rather than a narrative review
to reect its lack of engagement with the research literature.
The nal two pieces included in this meta-review are more
recent and are, to a certain extent, connected. The rst, a systematic
review and meta-evaluation (Weed, 2006), includes material in the
review not simply on the appreciation of the author (as is the case
with narrative reviews), but on a systematic and replicable search
criteria with clearly established boundaries (Klassen, Jahad, &
Moher, 1998). The research returned (in this case spanning the
years 20002004 inclusive) is then evaluated and the state of
knowledge in the eld assessed. This systematic review, supplemented by more recent research since 2004, provided the research
evidence base for inclusion in the nal piece included in this metareview, Sport & Tourism: A Reader (Weed, 2008a). This edited
book reprinted 30 articles selected by the author to represent the
best contemporary knowledge on sports tourism since the year
2000 and included an extensive critical commentary by the author
on the development of research in the eld.
A key theme arising from the above overview of the works
included in this meta-review is that research and knowledge have
been dynamic and have built on previous research over time. As
such, what was appropriate in terms of both substantive content
and review style in 1990 would not be acceptable now. However, as
noted earlier in the piece, the development of knowledge over time
is not necessarily linear, as different reviewers make choices about
the foundational work that they draw on to inform and structure
their reviews. Thus, the substantive review of progress in sports
tourism that follows conceptualises the eld of sports tourism as
a research terrain over which reviewers have taken divergent and
contrasting journeys.
2. Progress in sports tourism

The publication of Thomas Kuhns text, The Structure of
Scientic Revolutions in 1960 presented a challenge to the
received view that science is cumulative. Kuhn (1962) suggested
that, on a macro-level, science is not cumulative: cumulative
science takes place at a micro-level within paradigms (or ways of
thinking), but that this inevitably leads to a point where the
paradigm becomes increasingly untenable and is overturned in
a scientic revolution that establishes a new paradigm or paradigms. Moreover, paradigms are incommensurable, in that they
contain different assumptions, foundational concepts and methodological approaches that are incompatible with each other
(Bailey, 2006), and so they are largely self-referential, in that they
only draw on work conducted within the paradigm itself. More
recently, McFee (2007) has claimed that within social science the
concept of a paradigm is less useful, because there exists a wide
range of competing, and complementary, perspectives which,
although often containing varying views, are compatible and
between which communication can take place.
From the meta-position of this review, it seems that McFees
(2007) view of competing and complementary perspectives is most
useful for examining progress in sports tourism. What follows,
therefore, is a discussion of research and development in the eld
of sports tourism, and the way in which this has been addressed by
reviewers taking different journeys. The discussion is organized
under: core concepts; purpose, scope and content; and perspectives and disciplines.
2.1. Core concepts
Debates over core concepts have included discussions of the
way in which the eld is described (sport tourism, sporttourism,
sports tourism, sportstourism), the categorisation of sports
tourism (usually by the nature of participation on a particular trip)
and its nature, and the relationship of sports tourism with tourism
and with sport. While these may seem like pedantic debates, they
are signicant because they have affected the way in which
different authors and reviewers have addressed sports tourism. In
618
short, they are the starting points for reviewers journeys over the
research terrain.
Early reviews often tended to discuss sports holidays rather
than sports tourism. De Knop (1990, p. 32), for example, identies
three different types of sports holidays:
1. The pure sport holiday
2. The sporadic acceptance of organized sport
3. Private sporting activity on holidays
Similarly, almost eight years earlier Glyptis (1982) had discussed
sports holidays and general holidays with sports opportunities.
However, the implication of this terminology is that day trips, now
recognised as a signicant element of sports tourism, are not
considered. In fact, in one of the few attempts to disaggregate
statistics and allocate an economic value to sports tourism, Collins
and Jackson (1999) suggested that sports tourism days trips
(831million) generated 33% of the value of domestic sports
tourism (2471million) in the UK. It is not surprising, therefore, that
in the two years following De Knops (1990) review, Glyptis (1991),
Redmond (1991), Hall (1992) and Jackson and Glyptis (1992) were
each referring to tourism rather than holidays, with the latter
including a specic chapter on the generation of sports-related day
trips in their worldwide literature review.
While it was established relatively early in the period covered by
this meta-review that it was more appropriate to focus on the
wider concept of tourism rather than holidays, there remained
some debate regarding the sport or sports aspect of the term. For
some time it appeared that there was no conceptual reasoning
underpinning the use of terminology, with Redmond (1991) using
sports tourism, Hall (1992) using sport tourism, Jackson and
Glyptis (1992) using sportstourism or sport-related tourism,
and other authors attempting, as far as possible, to refer to sport
and tourism (e.g. Standeven & Tomlinson, 1994). This interchangeable use of terminology continued for some time, with many
authors indiscriminately using a range of terms in single papers.
However, in 1999, Weed introduced a broader concept, that of the
sporttourism link, and suggested that sports tourism was only
one area of this link which would also include, inter alia, the use of
sports stadia for tourist related events such as rock concerts, the
potential for joint lobbying by the sport and tourism sectors over
access to the countryside for recreation, and reciprocal use of sectoral information channels for the promotion of sport and of
tourism respectively.
In 2002, Gibson (2002, p. 115) explicitly addressed the sport
tourism/sports tourism debate, arguing that the term sport
tourism should be used to encompass a wider analysis of sport as
a social institution rather than the micro view of individual sports
and that it is sport that makes sport tourism unique from other
forms of tourism (p. 115). Two years later, and in contrast, Weed
and Bull (2004, p. xv) argued for the use of the term sports tourism
as it implies a focus on diverse and heterogeneous activities, with
Weed (2005b) later suggesting that those studying sports tourism
should move away from a dependence on denitions of sport and of
tourism to conceptualise sports tourism. Both Weed (2005b) and
Weed and Bull (2004) suggest focussing on the interaction between
the features of sport and tourism as the unique element, suggesting
that sports tourism is a social, economic and cultural phenomenon
arising from the unique interaction of activity, people and place
(Weed & Bull, 2004, p. 37). This, according to Weed (2005b, p. 234),
establishes sports tourism as related to but more than the sum of
sport and tourism. These debates over terminology continue, with
the Journal of Sport & Tourism, using the ampersand (&) to position
itself as neutral in these debates. However, the conceptual differentiation underpinning the respective positions is important as it is
derived from and related to wider debates over the nature of sports
tourism, which are themselves derived from discussions about
categorisations within sports tourism.
Early attempts to understand the nature of sports tourism and to
categorise it tended to retain a separate view of sport and of
tourism, with sports tourism most often being addressed as
a tourism market niche (c.f. Hall, 1992) which could simply be
understood as sport on holiday (c.f. De Knop, 1990) or sport away
from home. Jackson and Glyptis (1992) did attempt a broader
perspective, suggesting that tourism might also have a role in
generating sport participation, but the focus remained on the effect
of tourism on sport, or the effect of sport on tourism, which implied
a continued emphasis on two separate spheres of activity that
might, in some cases, impact upon each other. This is in part derived
from suggestions in Glyptis (1982) earlier work that two types of
sports tourism participation might be identied: participation in
sport that takes place as the primary purpose of the trip, and sports
participation that is incidental to other trip purposes. Like Gammon
and Robinsons (1997/2003) later work, this suggested that there
are trips where sport is dominant, and trips where tourism is
dominant.
Glyptis (1982) also noted that sports activities may be participative or non-participative (i.e. as spectators), which is described in
much work that followed as active and passive participation.
Gibson (1998), like many other authors and reviewers, draws on
this distinction, but also suggests a further element derived from
Redmonds (1991) review to encompass visits to sports halls of
fame and museums. As such, Gibson (1998, p. 49) suggests that:
.there are three distinct types of behaviour associated with
sport tourism: (1) actively participating (Active Sport Tourism),
(2) spectating (Event Sport Tourism), and (3) visiting and,
perhaps, paying homage (Nostalgia Sport Tourism)
Gibson uses these three categories to structure the substantive
part of her 1998 review, and draws on it again in her later reviews
(Gibson, 2002, 2003), thus establishing one particular route over
the terrain of sports tourism research. Other authors (e.g. Fairley &
Gammon, 2005; Funk & Bruun, 2007) have also drawn on this
categorisation, which owes much to Redmonds (1991) review and
his previous (Redmond, 1988) conference paper.
While Gibsons (1998, 2002, 2003) route over the sports tourism
research terrain has largely been derived from the work of Redmond, Weed (1999, 2005a, 2006; Jackson & Weed, 2003) has taken
a route that has largely been inuenced by Glyptis (1982, 1991;
Jackson & Glyptis, 1992) work. Much of Weeds early research
focussed on policy responses to the sporttourism link (e.g. Weed,
1999, 2001a; Weed & Bull, 1997a, 1997b, 1998) which was derived
from calls for research in this area in Gyptis work. As such, it is not
surprising that Weed and Bulls (2004) categorisation of sports
tourism types is adapted from Glyptis (1982) demand categories.
Weed and Bull (2004, p. 123) suggest that there are ve types of
sports tourism2: tourism with sports content, sports participation
tourism, sports training, sports events and luxury sports tourism,
and that these types may be multi- or single-sport, may be active or
passive, and may involve instruction, elite sport and/or a corporate
element. Weed and Bulls (2004) model of sports tourism types
addresses two key issues that have led Weed to take a different
route over the sports tourism research terrain to that taken by
Gibson. Firstly, it recognises that sports events may involve active
2
In the forthcoming second edition of their text, Weed and Bull (2009) update
this categorisation slightly, referring to ve sports tourism product types:
supplementary sports tourism, sports participation tourism, sports training
tourism, event sports tourism and luxury sports tourism.
mass participation at a non-elite level (for example, as one of

30,000 competitors in the London Marathon), whereas Gibson
(1998) equates events with spectating and, although active
participation in events is later briey mentioned (Gibson, 2002),
her focus on events as spectator phenomena largely continues
(Gibson, 2003). Secondly, Weed and Bull (2004, pp. 6970) argue
that nostalgia is a motivation for sports tourism rather than
a sports tourism type and that consequently it does not sit
comfortably alongside active and passive forms of sports tourism.
While Weed and Bull (2004) argued that both active and passive
participation in sports tourism might be motivated by nostalgia,
Weed (2005b) has since suggested that there may be a third form,
namely vicarious participation, on which he later elaborates in his
book on Olympic Tourism:
Many sports spectators consider themselves to be much more
than passive participants, although they are not actively taking
part in the sport itself. Such spectators feel that they are interacting with the active participants and, as such, might be
described as experiencing the sport vicariously through such
participants. This might be true of spectators in the case of sports
events, luxury sports tourism and tourism with sports content as
noted above. However, as visits to sports attractions and
museums become more widespread, such vicarious involvement may also be a part of sports participation tourism, where
the participation is the imagined (Gammon, 2002) journey and
vicarious experience that takes place (Weed, 2008b, p. 10)
As such, Weeds (1999, 2005a, 2005b; Weed & Bull, 2004) route
over the sports tourism research terrain has been one that assumes
ve sports tourism types that may be participated in actively,
passively and, in more recent writings, vicariously. This route has
undoubtedly been inuenced by Glyptis (1982, 1991; Jackson &
Glyptis, 1992) earlier work, and has also been taken up by other
authors (e.g. Kim, Kim, & Ritchie, 2008; Shipway, 2007).
Other categorisations of sports tourism have been suggested, but
they have not really achieved the contemporary currency of those
suggested by Gibson and by Weed. Kurtzman and Zauhars (1995)
suggestion that sports tourism comprised ve product types: attractions, resorts, cruises, tours and events. However, the only signicant
review to embrace this categorisation is Delpys (1998) market review
(the last descriptive market review to be published) and, although
Delpy later refers to this categorisation in a book chapter (DelpyNierotti, 2003), few other authors have embraced it, and it remains
a route over the research terrain that has not been well-trodden.
As noted above, some authors (e.g. Gammon & Robinson, 1997/
2003; Robinson & Gammon, 2004; Soeld, 2003) have suggested
that sports tourism might usefully be understood by examining trip
purpose, and that there are trips where sport is dominant, and trips
where tourism is dominant. In particular, Robinson and Gammon
(2004) and Soeld (2003) have attempted to separate out sports
tourists (for whom sport is the primary purpose of the trip) and
tourism sportists (sic) (for whom tourism is the primary purpose),
and to further classify these categories into hard and soft
participants, an approach that Gibson (2003) endorses in her
introductory overview. However, Weed (2005b) has suggested that
this perspective is awed because it is dependent on dening
tourism activity in terms of sport, or sport activity in terms of
tourism, and as such inevitably establishes a subordinate role for
either tourism or sport in an understanding of the area. Nevertheless, this is something that Pigeassou, Bui-Xuan, and Gleyse
(1998/2003) explicitly argue for, claiming that there is a need to
establish an epistemological rupture (p. 30) that divides the
phenomena and prevents any confusion between sport, tourism
and sports tourism, and that this is only possible through such
subordination, without which sports tourism would not exist and
619
the activities described or observed would be confused with

tourism phenomena (p. 30). However, as, inter alia, Downward
(2005) and Weed and Bull (2004) have argued, the nature of sports
tourism is as a synergistic phenomenon that is more than the
simple combination of sport and tourism. As such, it requires an
understanding of both sport and tourism, but it needs to be
addressed and understood in a way that does not retreat to denitions of sport and of tourism and that allows its synergistic
elements to be understood. This is something that was rarely a part
of some of the early reviews, with De Knop (1990) and Jackson and
Glyptis (1992) explicitly focussing on the impact of sport on
tourism and vice-versa. Other authors have made similar points,
with Soeld (2003, p. 144) noting that the study of sports tourism in
the 1990s suffered to a certain extent from Kurtzman and Zauhers
(1997) characterisation that there are often two separate areas of
research, with many studies taking either a sports perspective or
a touristic perspective as their starting point. In fact, this remains
a starting point for research journeys in some current work, as the
later discussions on Perspectives and Disciplines will show.
In the most recent review included here, Weed (2008a) argues
that the primacy of the sport or the tourism element in many sports
tourism experiences cannot be established and that, in fact, for
many experiences separate and distinguishable sport and tourism
elements may not be present. Hinch and Higham (2005) reinforce
this view in their discussions of the nature of sports tourism
attractions. They cite Nauright (1996) in support of their view that
.in many cases, sporting events and peoples reactions to them
are the clearest public manifestations of culture and collective
identities in a given society (p. 248). Here the experience of the
sports tourist is derived not only from the enjoyment of the sports
event but also from the participation in a manifestation of local
culture. As such, the primacy of either the sport or the tourism
element (if, indeed, such elements can be separated out) cannot be
established. This obviously suggests the need for a different route
over the research terrain than those involving a dichotomous view
of sports tourism as either sport dominant or tourism dominant.
This debate about the nature of sports tourism is one that will be
addressed again in the later section on Perspectives and Disciplines.
2.2. Purpose, scope and content
Earlier introductory comments noted that reviews of sports
tourism have been written for a range of audiences (policymakers,
academics and researchers, students) and, to a certain extent, this
determines their purpose. Clearly, reports commissioned by the
Great Britain Sports Council (Jackson & Glyptis, 1992) or regional
sports bodies (Standeven & Tomlinson, 1994) will have strategy and
policy development as their purpose. Similarly, introductory overviews for the student market will be just that, broad introductions.
However, it is not only the intended audience for the review that
determines scope. Undoubtedly one of the key purposes of Weeds
(2006) systematic review and meta-interpretation was to highlight
some of the problems with the body of sports tourism knowledge.
Somewhat surprisingly, this is something that few other reviews
(even those published in peer-reviewed journals) have done, as
many are largely descriptive overviews of the content of previous
research which rarely make judgements relating to quality, either at
the level of the eld as a whole, or in relation to individual pieces of
work. Consequently, the respective weight that might be given to
different pieces of research or commentaries is rarely the subject of
critique in the reviews included in this meta-review, and this
affects the journeys the reviewers take. This is something that
discussions of content in the second part of this section will
address. However, rst the scope of the reviews included is
discussed.
620
The scope of the 18 reviews varies in relation to geographical

coverage, publication date, and topic. Some reviews are based,
either explicitly or by nature of the location of the reviewer, in
particular geographical areas or regions. For example, Standeven
and Tomlinson (1994) review the literature with the specic aim of
addressing development in the South East of England, while Weed
(2005a) and Gibson (2003) tend to present a Euro-centric or North
American-centric view respectively because of their locations and,
to a certain extent, because of the geographic market for these
particular reviews. Weeds (2006, 2008b) later reviews are bounded by date, in the rst case in order to provide a critique of
contemporary knowledge development, and in the second, to
present the highest quality contemporary peer-reviewed research
into the relationship between sport and tourism (p. 5). However, it
is the topic scope of the reviews that is of most interest.
The four earliest reviews (De Knop, 1990; Glyptis, 1991; Hall,
1992; Redmond, 1991), although largely providing suggestions
about how sport and tourism might be linked, rather than
evidence relating to such links (which was scarce at the time) are
instructive as they clearly set the agenda, or route, for subsequent
journeys later taken by other reviewers. De Knop (1990) discussed
opportunities given by sports holidays to develop tourism and
opportunities offered by tourism for the development of sport.
This suggested, rstly, that there was a need to focus on impacts
and, secondly, that such impacts should relate to the impact of
tourism on sport and of sport on tourism. This led to the development of work that, as noted in the previous section, took either
sport or tourism as a starting point rather than focussing on the
synergistic phenomena of sports tourism. This is an approach that
several subsequent reviews drew on to a greater or lesser extent
(e.g. Jackson & Glyptis, 1992; Weed, 1999). However, it is the focus
on impacts that has perhaps had the greatest longevity, with
Weeds (2006) systematic review showing that 25% of sports
tourism research in the period 20002004 had a primary focus on
assessing impacts. The second of the early reviews (Glyptis, 1991)
focussed on administration and policy for sports tourism, and this
was the forerunner of a policy focus, or at least the inclusion of
policy content, in many later reviews (e.g. Gibson, 2002; Weed,
2005a). In fact, this policy focus led to Weeds (1999) review that
argued that research into the relationship between sport and
tourism was too narrowly focused on sports holidays and that
there was a need to consider the wider policy implications (and
potential strategic and policy partnerships) arising from the
sporttourism link. Weed (1999) claimed (and continues to claim,
see Weed & Bull, 2009) that sports tourism is but one part of a link
between sport and tourism, some aspects of which do not include
sports tourism products or experiences. As noted earlier, this may
include the use of a sports venue for a tourism event (e.g. a rock
concert or business exhibition), or mutual lobbying by sport and
tourism organisations for access to the countryside for sport and
for tourism. The third early review (Redmond, 1991) appears to be
the rst to comment upon the development of sports halls of fame
and museums as explicit sports tourism products, and this led
directly to Gibsons (1998, 2002, 2003) inclusion of nostalgia sport
tourism (alongside active and event sport tourism) in a categorisation of the area around which she structured her reviews, and
which has been utilised by many authors since. The extent to
which nostalgia sports tourism might be considered a sports
tourism type was discussed earlier; however, regardless of the
view taken of this, nostalgia has certainly been investigated as
a motivator for sports tourism (e.g. Fairley, 2003; Gammon, 2002).
More recently, though, prevailing thought appears to be that
nostalgia is less useful as a concept than heritage, with Ramshaw
and Gammon (2005) arguing that the heritage/sports tourism
nexus is more than just nostalgia.
The nal of the four early reviews was by Hall (1992), which
sought to locate sports tourism within a typology that also included
adventure tourism and health tourism. Apart from stimulating an
interest in the development of typologies for sports tourism, this
review made some early comments on the relationship between
sports tourism and other closely related areas, each of which has
now developed their own literatures. Health tourism seems to have
largely developed into a body of work in spa tourism (e.g. Loverseed, 1998; Williams, Andestad, Pollock, & Dossa, 1996) or, more
recently, wellness tourism (e.g. Mueller & Kaufmann, 2001; Smith &
Kelly, 2006), but an indication of the fuzzy boundaries that exist
between areas such as these is that some authors characterise spa
tourism as falling within sports tourism (e.g. Hall, 2003; Spivack,
1998). However, it is probably event tourism and adventure tourism
that are the most widely researched areas that obviously overlap
with sports tourism. As event tourism has already been the subject
of a progress review in this journal (Getz, 2008), it would be
pointless to repeat the commentary on the overlap between the
two areas already provided (pp. 411412), but a brief comment on
adventure tourism is useful.
Some authors have conated adventure and sports tourism (e.g.
Hudson, 2003), whilst others see adventure tourism as a discrete
eld (e.g. Swarbrooke, Beard, Leckie, & Pomfret, 2003). Weed
(2006) suggested, in his systematic review, that a self-identied
community of scholars working in adventure tourism exists, but
that their work clearly overlaps with and contributes to understandings of sports tourism, particularly in relation to behaviours.
Weed (2006) also suggested that, whilst his systematic review
indicated a dominance of descriptive positivism among
researchers identifying with sports tourism, it may be that there is
more of a norm of theoretical discussion in adventure tourism
research (p. 21). This led Weed (2008a) to include several examples of adventure tourism research (e.g. Beedie, 2003; Kane & Zink,
2004; Sung, 2004; Weber, 2001) among his collection of the
highest quality contemporary peer-reviewed research (p. 5)
relating to sports tourism.
While the early reviews clearly played a role in setting out
a route map for the structure and content of later sports tourism
reviews, it is the substantive content of these later reviews that is
perhaps most useful in understanding the contemporary status of
sports tourism knowledge, and the different journeys taken
through it by reviewers. As such, it is to a consideration of content
that this section now turns, focussing particularly on reviews
conducted since 2000.
While each of the reviews since 2000 make some attempt at
breadth of coverage, there are some key themes that emerge. Firstly
Keller (2001), Gibson (2003) and Weed (2005a) make particular
mention of sports event impacts, and this is the body of work that
Weed (2006) identies as receiving the most attention in the 80
studies covered in his systematic review. In terms of substantive
content, as a result of the work of, inter alia: Barker, Page, and Meyer
(2003) on the 2000 Americas Cup in Auckland; Dermody, Taylor,
and Lomanno (2003) on NFL games; Horne and Manzenreiter
(2004) on the 2002 Football World Cup in Korea and Japan; Jones
(2001) on the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales; Madden (2002) on
the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000; Preuss (2004) on the Olympic
Games; Ritchie and Lyons (1990) on the 1988 Calgary Winter
Olympic Games; Roche (1994) on mega-events generally; and
Tyrrell, Williams, and Johnston (2004) on the Vancouver 2012
Winter Olympic Games; there is wide-ranging evidence that
hosting mega- and major events has economic implications. As
noted earlier, as few reviewers comment on study quality some
reviewers take the results of these and other economic impact
studies at face value; however, others have highlighted a range of
critiques of such work. Studies by, inter alia, Crompton (2004,
2006), Hudson (2001), Kasimati (2003) and Preuss (2005, 2007),

suggest that there is both methodological incompetence and
deliberate obfuscation as a result of political pressures in many
economic impact studies, with a further clear suggestion that, at
best, these studies are not directly comparable and, at worst, they
are political window dressing. The overall result of these debates,
therefore, is that while, on balance, the evidence suggests that
there is generally a macro-economic benet to hosting major
sporting events, the exact nature and extent of this impact remain
unclear.
There have been some suggestions, both in the literature
generally, and in two of the reviews since 2000 (Chalip, 2001;
Weed, 2008a) that there is a need to shift the focus of research in
this area from impact to leverage. Chalip (2001) is the rst reviewer
to raise this, and his journey since his 2001 review has explored
leverage in detail. Chalip (2004) explains in later work the difference between impacts and leveraging research:
Unlike impact assessments, the study of leverage has a strategic
and tactical focus. The objective is to identify strategies and
tactics that can be implemented prior to and during an event in
order to generate particular outcomes. Consequently, leveraging
implies a much more pro-active approach to capitalising on
opportunities, rather than impacts research which simply
measures outcomes.
Similarly, Weed (2008a) suggests that a framework that
considers impacts may be a little outmoded (p. 293) and that the
concept of leveraging can act as a bridge between research on
behaviours, impacts, policy and provision and for this reason it
seems that such leveraging approaches will play a central part in
future sports tourism research (p. 571).
In addition to critiques of the conduct and value of economic
impact studies, some reviewers have also noted that the discourse
surrounding mega- and major events has been dominated by
economic perspectives at the expense of social and environmental
issues. In particular, Gibson (2003) and Jackson and Weed (2003)
highlight the concerns of a range of authors that the social and
environmental impacts are not entirely positive. Key examples
include: COHREs (2007) studies of the forced displacement of local
communities to facilitate Olympic development for the 1992
Games in Barcelona and the 2008 Games in Beijing; Doveys (1989)
work highlighting the use of the Americas Cup in Freemantle to
manipulate the planning process for new development in Perth;
Hall and Hodges (1996) work highlighting the disproportionate
burden placed on the lowest income residents for the Sydney 2000
Olympic Games; Roches (1994, p. 1) critique of short term events
with long-term consequences; and Weeds (2002) work on football hooligans as undesirable sports tourists. These critiques have
led some authors (e.g. Gibson, Willming, & Holdnak, 2003; Higham,
1999) to suggest that a focus on regular and often small-scale
events may provide communities with greater benets and fewer
burdens than one-off mega-or major events, something that
aspects of the literature (e.g. Garnham, 1996; Higham & Hinch,
2001; Irwin & Sandler, 1998) appear to support. However, as the
literature on mega- and major events, and therefore many research
journeys through it, remains dominated by economic research, the
maxim that the biggest events bring the biggest payoffs remains
difcult to counter empirically, particularly if study quality is taken
at face value.
It is perhaps worth noting that, somewhat disappointingly,
Kellers (2001) narrative discussion, commissioned by the World
Tourism Organisation, contains little recognition of negative social
and environmental impacts. In fact, a section in this report entitled
Creating Opportunities for Sustainable Development focuses
singularly on economic sustainability. Had Keller taken any journey
621
through sports tourism literature in compiling his report, he would

have found a wide range of material to inform his discussion on
both positive and negative social and economic impacts.
Undoubtedly, event sports tourism is the highest prole product
within sports tourism. In fact, Deery, Jago, and Fredline (2004, p.
243) even went so far as to suggest that sport tourism is sport
event tourism and that it is focussed on competitive sport.rather
than recreational activities. While aspects of their argument, such
as the importance of event sports tourism within sports tourism,
are obviously valid, the existence of the golf and the ski tourism
industries clearly undermines it. In fact, it is these industries that
are most often quoted by reviewers to reinforce the point that
Sport tourism is not synonymous with sport event tourism. Rather,
sport tourism is multi-faceted (Chalip, 2001).
Chalip (2001), Gibson (2003) and Jackson and Weed (2003) each
explicitly mention golf and ski tourism as key exemplars of what
Gibson (2002) would call active sport tourism and what Weed and
Bull (2004) would call sports participation tourism. This is not
surprising, as these are two signicant industries in their own right,
with Weeds (2006) systematic review showing that they are the
two most researched sports participation tourism products.
However, as with event sports tourism, there is a considerable
debate in the literature about the impacts of these activities, with
similar discussions about the interaction of economic, social and
environmental impacts. In relation to skiing, for example: Hudson,
Ritchie, and Timur (2004) have researched destination competitiveness; Perdue (2004) has examined stakeholder strategies;
Riddington (2002) used an examination of ability to pay to forecast
demand; Thapa and Grafe (2003) and Vaske, Carothers, Donnelly,
and Baird (2000) have researched user conicts; Tuppen (2000) has
examined economic restructuring of resorts in the French Alps; and
Weiss, Norden, Hilschers, and Vanreusel (1998) demonstrated that
residents dependent on the ski industry were blind to negative
environmental impacts. Similarly, examples of research into golf
tourism include: the economic impacts of golf and golf tourism in
Florida (Haydu & Hodges, 2002); golf course development for
tourism in Malta (Marwick, 2000), concerns for the development of
golf tourism in the developing world (Palmer, 2004); ecological
impacts of golf tourism in Thailand (Pleumarom, 1992); environmental factors affecting social and economic impacts of golf
tourism in the Algarve (Videira et al., 2006); and planning and
management issues for golf course development for tourism
(Warnken, Thompson, & Zakus, 2001). These research examples,
particularly those for golf, show that there appears to be a greater
concern for an holistic assessment of impacts than exists for event
sports tourism, and that planning and management responses have
been scrutinised in greater depth. However, both for golf and for
skiing, but also for sports participation tourism more generally,
there has been a greater focus on sports tourists behaviours. While
for event sports tourism, behaviours have tended to be analysed
largely only insofar as they generate either economic impacts (e.g.
Irwin & Sandler, 1998; Preuss, 2005) or violent or anti-social
behaviour (e.g. Stott, Adang, Livingstone, & Schreiber, 2007; Weed,
2001b), for sports participation tourism, behavioural research has
been much more extensive. As noted earlier, Weeds (2006)
systematic review shows that it is in relation to behavioural
research that there is the greatest overlap between sports tourism
and adventure tourism, with research self-identied as falling into
the latter area generally tending to be more theoretically robust.
Weed (2006) shows that, after event impacts, the behaviours of
sports tourists participating in outdoor and adventurous activities
are the next most researched areas in sports tourism. Examples of
such research include: Carothers, Vaske, and Donnellys (2001)
work on values and conict among hikers and mountain bikers;
Coble, Selin, and Ericksons (2003) research on the fear experienced
622
by solo hikers; Fluker and Turners (2000) investigation of the

motivations and experiences of commercial whitewater rafters;
Gandhi-Arora and Shaws (2002) research on visitor loyalty in
sports tourism; Greens (2001) range of research into subculture
and identity in sports tourism; Kane and Zinks (2004) and Green
and Jones (2005) investigations of sports tourism as serious leisure;
Petrick and Backmans (2002a, 2002b, 2002c) work on the satisfaction and value perceived by golf tourists; and Williams and
Fidgeons (2000) research of participation constrains for potential
skiers. Some of this work is motivated by addressing a particular
management or marketing issue (e.g. Gandhi-Arora & Shaws, 2002,
work is targeted at gaining repeat visitors; Greens, 2001, research
is aimed at developing leveraging strategies; Williams &Fidgeons,
2000, work seeks to suggest strategies to address constraints),
whilst other work is more fundamental. There does, however,
appear to be a quality issue with some of the work conducted in this
area, with Weed (2006) citing Downward (2005) and Gibson
(2004) in support of the view that the majority of research on
sports tourists behaviours tends to focus on the what of behaviours (i.e. description) rather than the why (i.e. explanation)
(Gibson, 2004) and that explanations require ontic depth, that is
moving beyond the level of events to an understanding of the
processes that produce them (Downward, 2005, p. 315).
Two further substantive areas of content feature across the
reviews since 2000. The rst of these is linked to the concept of
leveraging as introduced by Chalip (2001), and the second is related
to the social impacts of sports tourism. Chalip (2001) suggests that
a leveraging approach is important in order to fully capitalise on the
role sports tourism can play in a destinations marketing mix. This
both leads to, and is derived from, a range of research concerned
with sports tourism, destination image and media exposure. Such
research has focussed on, inter alia: the impact of the Sydney
Olympics on Brand Australia (Brown, Chalip, Jago, & Mules, 2002);
host city marketing at the Olympic Games (Burton, 2003); the
impact of event media on tourists intentions to visit (Chalip, Green,
& Hill, 2003); an analysis of the media exposure generated by the
NCAA Womens Final Four basketball tournament (Green, Costa, &
Fitzgerald, 2003); place marketing of drag racing in Florida (Pennington-Gray & Holdnack, 2002); and the impact of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics on destination awareness (Ritchie & Smith,
1991). In the most recent review under consideration here, Weed
(2008a) notes that, while research on destination image and media
exposure does not fall within the traditional framework of
economic, social and environmental impacts, the effective
marketing of cities may have implications (both positive and
negative) in each of these areas for both visitors and residents.
Weed (2008a) suggests that this is a further argument for an
approach that focuses on leveraging, which as well as maximising
benets should also focus on the mitigation of negative
consequences.
The nal substantive area of content featuring across the
reviews is related to the above discussion as it focuses on the
perceptions and experiences of local residents and communities of
sports tourism products and developments. Received wisdom has
tended to be that local communities are, at best, agnostic towards
sports tourism developments and, at worst, downright hostile (e.g.
Barker, 2004; Getz, 2005). However, recent research has tended to
suggest that local communities either experience no inconvenience
from sports tourism (as found by Ohmann, Jones, & Wilkes, 2006, in
relation to the 2006 Football World Cup) or believe that the
inconvenience is worthwhile given the recognised benets for their
community (as found by Bull & Lovell, 2007, in relation to the 2007
Tour de France in Canterbury). In fact, Fredline (2005) suggests,
drawing on social exchange theory, that if the potential positive
impacts of sports tourism are properly communicated to local
residents and they believe there will be positive impacts for their
community, then they are likely to perceive the event positively.
Weed (2008a) notes in his review that Fredlines (2005) work
suggests the need to incorporate residents experiences and
perceptions into the strategic planning process for sports tourism.
This links both to leveraging, in that local celebration and
involvement should be a strategic priority to be leveraged from
sports tourism (Chalip, 2006), and to the planning process for
sports tourism (as suggested earlier in relation to golf tourism e.g.
Warnken et al., 2001), in that local residents should be both
educated about and consulted upon the impacts of sports tourism
developments.
Obviously, journeys taken through sports tourism research in
the reviews included in this meta-review cover a wider range of
substantive material than that discussed above. However, these
substantive areas of content the emphasis on, and problems with
the evaluation of, the economic impacts of event sports tourism;
the trend towards leveraging research in event sports tourism; the
more holistic focus on social and cultural, as well as economic,
impacts of sports participation tourism; the behavioural focus of
research in sports participation tourism, albeit with some quality
issues; the examination of the role of sports tourism in destination
marketing and in generating media exposure; and the increasing
concern with developing positive perceptions among local residents are the most widely researched topics and therefore those
which journeys through sports tourism research are likely to
continue to encounter and, in the best examples, to critique. The
likely development of future progress in sports tourism will be
the subject of a later section (an exploration of futures). However,
the next section discusses the varying perspectives or disciplines
that have guided reviewers journeys over the sports tourism
research terrain.
2.3. Perspectives and disciplines
Before the nal part of this meta-review explores the futures
suggested by reviewers, a brief discussion on the various disciplines
and perspectives that guide reviewers journeys is perhaps useful.
Of course, all of the reviews explicitly note that the study of sports
tourism must be multi-disciplinary because sports tourism is
multi-faceted (Chalip, 2001). Weed (2008a, p. 570), in particular,
makes this point:
A key feature of the maturing nature of sports tourism as
a legitimate sub-eld is an increasing focus on the academic
disciplines that underpin its study.Undoubtedly, sports
tourism is a multi-disciplinary area of study and as research
matures further it may be that particular specialisms develop.
Similarly, Gibson (1998, 2002) has long called in her reviews for
sports tourism to draw upon existing frameworks in leisure, sport
and tourism studies as well as other pertinent disciplines (2002, p.
122). However, it is worth making a distinction at this point
between subject areas (such as sport, tourism, leisure, etc.) and
disciplines (such as economics, psychology, geography, etc.). Weed
(2008a), in particular, urges researchers to read around parent
disciplines (e.g. psychology) rather than limit their reading to their
own subject area (e.g. sport psychology). To do the latter limits
knowledge to the second-hand appreciation of the application of
psychological theory to a particular subject rather than ensuring
that knowledge is grounded in the debates that are underpinning
theory development in the broader discipline (Weed, 2008a, p. 4).
This issue will be discussed further in the later exploration of
futures section.
Although there is a broad agreement that sports tourism
research is a multi-disciplinary endeavour, the disciplinary
perspectives of the authors clearly impact upon their subject

coverage. Chalips (2001) background in management clearly
structures much of the discussion in his review on the way in which
sports tourism should be nurtured, marketed and managed, whilst
Weeds (1999) earliest review seeks to suggest a context against
which policy can be developed, as bets his training as a social and
political scientist. Higham and Hinch (2006) are more overt about
their disciplinary perspective, and explicitly set out to suggest
a geographic approach to sports tourism research. However, in
conclusion they invite scholars from other disciplines, for example
sociology and anthropology, to contribute approaches from such
perspectives.
More signicant, perhaps, than reviewers disciplinary background, is the subject area from which they approach sports
tourism. It is probably fair to say that the majority of scholars
publishing in the sports tourism area have a background in tourism,
and this undoubtedly affects the way in which they approach sports
tourism. The following, somewhat lengthy, quotation from Gibsons
(2003, p. 355) introductory overview illustrates this point:
We started the chapter by analysing the sport and tourism
connection. The focus was on understanding tourism and the
tourism industry. Tourism is the worlds largest industry and is
composed of many segments, including transportation;
accommodation; attractions; and the government and
nongovernment agencies responsible for planning, setting
policy, and marketing. A tourist is dened in this chapter as
a leisure traveller on a voluntary, temporary, relatively long trip
in pursuit of novelty and change. Sport tourism is dened as
travel to participate in sport (active sport tourism), to watch
sport (event sport tourism), or to venerate something or
somebody associated with a sport (nostalgia sport tourism).
Clearly, this approach to sports tourism is based in and derived
from an understanding of tourism, with sport merely being the
vehicle by which tourism is generated. The dominance of the
tourism perspective is also recognised by Shipway (2005) who, in
reviewing Weed and Bulls (2004) text, notes: What is apparent
from this book is the authors extensive knowledge of the sports
side of the sports tourism relationship, which is often limited in
other publications, invariably written from a tourism perspective.. On one hand this is undoubtedly a criticism of some areas of
the literature (and reviews of it). Weed (2005b, p. 234), in particular, advocates an approach in which sports tourism is related to,
but more than the sum of sport and tourism and therefore cannot
be fully understood from the single perspective of either sport or
tourism (Weed & Bull, 2004, p. 203). However, on the other hand,
the critique is not so much of analyses of sports tourism from
a tourism perspective, but of the presentation of such analyses as
presenting a whole and complete picture of sports tourism.
Consequently, if tourism-based analyses of sports tourism are
presented as such, then it will be clear to the reader that there will
also be perspectives from sport and, increasingly in more recent
research, integrative holistic perspectives that examine sports
tourism rather than sport as a tourism niche market or tourism as
a consideration for sport managers. As such, an important point
from the meta-perspective of this review is that the starting point
for journeys over the sports tourism research terrain may have an
important inuence on the extent and scope of material such
journeys cover.
3. An exploration of futures
This meta-review has examined the various routes taken over
the sports tourism research terrain by a number of reviewers. In
doing so it has highlighted the points from which such reviewers
623
have started, the points at which their journeys overlap or intersect,

and the places in which their journeys are different. However, few
reviewers, particularly those conducting the type of epiphanic
review described in the introduction, limit themselves to a retrospective view of the journey they have taken. In the vast majority of
cases, there is a view of how the journey might (or in most cases,
should) continue into the future. Such futures are, as bets
epiphanic reviews, often presented as the eld reaching a conclusion about what future development is required. However, a single
view of required future development does not exist across
reviews, and so the discussion below explores the futures proposed.
In doing so it examines futures that have been envisaged for the
management of sports tourism, for sports tourism knowledge, and
for the conceptualisation of the nature of sports tourism, before
concluding with a brief comment on challenges and critiques of
such futures.
3.1. Sports tourism management futures
Five of the reviews conducted since 2000 offer, although not
necessarily exclusively, management-oriented views of sports
tourism futures. Such views suggest that the key issue for sports
tourism is the way it is managed, either for future growth and to
secure benets, or to mitigate or plan for potential negative aspects
of sports tourism development.
Sitting alone among these reviews is Kellers (2001) narrative
discussion, which focuses on a future in which strategies are
available to the sport sector to capitalise on tourism, and in which
the tourism industry may employ strategies to capitalise on sport.
This is a view of the future which has not featured in reviews of
sports tourism since the early 1990s, when reviewers had little
previous research to draw on. Contemporary reviewers that have
drawn on the volume of sports tourism research conducted since
the early 1990s have been able to offer more integrated views for
future development. As such, that Keller (2001) presents a future
for sports tourism that is a decade behind other reviewers in the
eld is a reection of a complete failure to embark upon any
substantive journey over the terrain of previous sports tourism
research.
In their two reviews (the second of which was an update of the
rst), Jackson and Weed (2003; Weed & Jackson, 2008) suggest
some issues that might affect the future growth of sports tourism
(such as security) but, more substantively, discuss a future in which
there is a need for better measured and more considered impact
statements, and a need to go beyond the dominant discourse of
economic impacts. Given Jacksons (Bramwell, Henry, & Jackson,
1996; Henry & Jackson, 1996; Jackson & Morpeth, 1998) background
in sustainability, it is not surprising that their view of the future
suggests that sustainable development approaches may offer the
best route to long-term growth. However, this comes with
a warning that costbenet analyses that set economic considerations against environmental and social impacts rarely lead to an
agreed bottom line, thus suggesting that some of the recent
attempts at triple bottom line evaluations of sports events (e.g.
Jago, 2005) may struggle to reach holistic conclusions.
Jackson and Weeds (2003; Weed & Jackson, 2008) future, in
which the potential negative consequences of sports tourism
development need to be managed through sustainable development, might perhaps be seen as the ip side of the coin to Chalips
(2001) future, in which the potential benets of sports tourism
must be planned for and strategically leveraged. Undoubtedly,
Chalips (2001) argument that positive benets and legacies are not
inherent in sports tourism products, but must be leveraged, is one
that has been developed further, both by Chalip himself (e.g. Chalip,
2004, 2006; Chalip & Leyns, 2002) and by other authors (e.g. Green,
624
2001; OBrien, 2006, 2007; Weed, 2008b), but what has often been
missing is a recognition that, in addition to leveraging positive
impacts, steps should be taken to mitigate potential negative
consequences. If the leveraging concept can be applied to mitigation as well as leverage, then it may offer a more effective and
efcient route into the future than triple bottom line evaluations,
which are simply a multi-dimensional form of impact assessment.
As such, Chalips (2004) view, quoted earlier, might be extended:
Unlike impact assessments, the study of leverage.[and mitigation]. has a strategic and tactical focus. The objective is to
identify strategies and tactics that can be implemented prior to
and during an event in order to generate.[or moderate].
particular outcomes. Consequently, leveraging.[and mitigation]. implies a much more pro-active approach to capitalising
on opportunities.[and ameliorating undesirable consequences]., rather than impacts research which simply
measures outcomes.
Of course, leverage and mitigation are management responses
to sports tourism development, and there may well be critics that
argue that the more appropriate future route is for such development not to take place at all (see discussions later in this section).
However, regardless of the view taken on development, all ve of
the reviews offering some management-related comments on
sports tourism futures (Chalip, 2001; Gibson, 2002; Jackson &
Weed, 2003; Keller, 2001; Weed & Jackson, 2008) suggest that
there remains a need for policy collaborations and strategic partnerships, something that regularly featured in the earlier reviews
(Gibson, 1998; Glyptis, 1991; Jackson & Glyptis, 1992; Weed, 1999).
It would appear, therefore, that the resistance to such collaborations among policy agencies, rst identied by Glyptis in 1982, still
exists over a quarter of a century later. On a positive note, however,
in his review of Olympic Tourism, Weed (2008b) has suggested that
the Olympic Games can act as an exogenous shock to policy
systems in which there is an institutionalised bias against collaboration, and ongoing studies on the London 2012 Olympic and
Paralympic Games may prove or disprove this in the future.
3.2. Sports tourism knowledge futures
Whilst there are some implications for knowledge futures in
each of the recent reviews, it is largely in Gibsons (2002) and
Weeds (2006, 2008a) reviews that such issues are addressed. Both
Gibson and Weed address similar issues relating to theory and
method, but their emphases are different, and therefore their
suggested future journeys vary slightly.
Both Gibson and Weed call for greater theorisation in sports
tourism research. Gibson (2002) suggests that the source of
such theorisation should be the frameworks and concepts that
have been applied and developed in related subjects (i.e. leisure,
sport, tourism, etc.). In particular, Gibson (2002) suggests (after
Hall, 1992) that serious leisure (Stebbins, 1992, 2007) can help
understand sports tourism participation, and that classic work
on push and pull factors in tourism (Crompton, 1979; Dann,
1977) may help understand sports tourism motivation. Some
more recent work, such as Green and Jones (2005) discussion of
the potential of serious leisure in sports tourism, has taken this
route, but there still remains little empirical verication or
work grounded in such theoretical suppositions (Gibson, 2002,
p. 116). Gibson herself has sought to address this lack of
empirical verication in her own long-standing research utilising tourist role theory in sports tourism (e.g. Gibson & Pennington-Gray, 2005)
Weed (2006, 2008a) suggests that the sources of theorisation for
sports tourism might best come from disciplines (psychology,
sociology, geography, anthropology political science), something

that other authors have since explored (see Higham & Hinchs,
2006, work on geographical perspectives, and Chalips forthcoming
Guest Editorship of a special issue of the Journal of Sport & Tourism
on anthropological approaches). Weeds approach is rooted in his
view, drawn from work on the sociology of science (e.g. Kuhn, 1962;
McFee, 2007) and expounded within (Weed, 2006) and outside
(Weed, 2007) sports tourism studies, that subject areas develop
dominant conventions relating to the application of theory (and
method see below) that can impact upon the development of
knowledge. As such, drawing on disciplines rather than subject
areas can help ensure that theoretical hegemonies have less
inuence on the development of sports tourism knowledge. This
approach is clear in his own long-standing work on sports tourism
policy (e.g. Weed, 2001a, 2005c).
In her earlier review, Gibson (1998, p. 68) comments on the lack
of methodological diversity in sports tourism research, noting that:
Survey research has been the method of choice in most of the
studies reviewed in this paper..If some of the questions posed
are to be answered adequately, qualitative methods such as indepth interviews and ethnographies need to be employed.
There is also room for experimental research. In many studies,
more sophisticated multivariate statistical analyses need to be
employed.
However, comments on methods did not explicitly feature in
Gibsons (2002) later review. Conversely, it is in his later reviews
that Weed (2006, 2008a) begins to address method, specically
setting out to evaluate methodological approaches in his 2006
review, noting that this meta-evaluation clearly shows that sports
tourism research lacks methodological diversity, with 71% of
primary and secondary research articles utilising a positivist
approach (p. 20). Furthermore, this reinforces Weeds (2005b, p.
239) earlier comments on the inuence of conventions, in that
positivist dominance in the area encourages individual researchers
to apply positivist methods on the basis of convention rather than
epistemological concerns, something that is also suggested by
Ryan (2005, p. 262):
The multiplicity of journals has meant that it has been relatively
easy for researchers to gain publication of technically skilled
quantitative based pieces..which actually offer little in terms of
new conceptualisation, or are able to articulate any signicant
addition to the literature.
In fact, it is this latter point that Weed has made a number of
times in recent publications that sports tourism research has
produced a reasonable volume of papers, but that these do not
easily assemble into a body of knowledge. In this respect, Weeds
(2006, p. 23) knowledge future suggests that authors focus on:
.locating their empirical work within the current body (or
bodies) of knowledge in the area, building on, rather than
repeating, previous research, and paying attention to methodological and epistemological concerns in constructing their
research, rather than simply applying methods on the basis of
current practice and convention.
Although the exact future route that Gibson (1998, 2002) and
Weed (2006, 2008a) envisage may not be the same, undoubtedly
both of their journeys suggest a need for a theoretically and
methodologically robust body of sports tourism knowledge
through which to travel. Whether this is derived from previous
work in leisure sport and tourism, or from disciplinary frameworks
may depend, to a certain extent, on future views of the nature of
sports tourism.
3.3. Futures of the nature of sports tourism

Views about the nature of sports tourism might perhaps be
regarded as lenses through which future development might be
viewed. Earlier discussions have already highlighted some differences in this area in relation to terminology, conceptualisation and
the relationship of sports tourism with tourism and with sport. In
her 2002 review, developing themes from her review in 1998,
Gibson suggests that the coherent and cumulative development of
sports tourism knowledge would be best served if authors were to
use the term sport tourism in our abstracts or key word identiers
so that locating work is easier (p. 123). This, of course, assumes
a unied view that the term sport tourism is the most appropriate
one to describe the eld. Gibson (2002) was writing before Weed
and Bull (2004) detailed their conceptual reasons for the use of the
term sports tourism, so Gibsons (2002) suggestion is perhaps an
attempt to tidy up the use of terminology, rather than to impose
her approach to terminology on others.
The differences in terminology stem from a view that sport
tourism should be linked to a macro view of the social institution of
sport so we can more readily address such questions as What
makes sport tourism unique from other forms of tourism?
(Gibson, 2002, p. 115). However, the use of sports tourism is
derived from a heterogeneous view of sports tourism, rather than
one that is linked to the homogenising concept of sport, and that
sports tourism is a unique area of study derived from the interaction of activity people and place [and thus] a dependence on the
social institution of sport to characterise the area would be somewhat incongruous (Weed & Bull, 2004, p. xv).
The fundamental difference here would appear to be between
sport tourism as one among other forms of tourism (Gibson,
2002, p. 115) and sports tourism as a unique area of study (Weed
& Bull, 2004, p. xv), related to but more than the sum of sport and
tourism (Weed, 2005b, p. 234). The rst is a view that sees sport
tourism as a tourism activity that subordinates sport, whilst the
second is a view that sees sports tourism as an activity in its own
right, related but not subordinate to sport and tourism. The
implications of these different views are manifest in other aspects
of Gibsons and of Weeds views of the future. The rst is, as noted
above, that Gibson (2002) suggests turning to work in tourism,
sport and leisure to source theoretical frameworks and perspectives, something that other authors have taken up (e.g. Green &
Jones, 2005, work on serious leisure), whilst Weed (2008a)
suggests turning to disciplines such as geography and social
psychology (see, also, work by Hinch & Higham, 2001, on geography, and Kaplanidou & Vogt, 2007, using the theory of planned
behaviour from social psychology). The second is a view of sport
tourism as a trip purpose, with the purpose being to: a) travel to
take part; b) travel to watch; [or] c) travel to venerate, worship or
celebrate sport (Gibson, 2002, p. 115) as opposed to a view of
sports tourism as a trip behaviour that might interact with more
general tourist behaviours (e.g. shopping, eating, drinking) and
functional behaviours (e.g. ironing, cleaning) to comprise an overall
trip experience (Weed, 2008a, p. 570). Each of these foundational
differences has important implications for the way in which the
study of sports tourism will develop, and it thus appears that there
are likely to be futures for sports tourism research, rather than
a future. What is clear is that it is not possible to reach an epiphany
about the future needs for a coherent eld, as the shape of the eld,
and of its future(s), is clearly contested.
3.4. Challenging and critical futures
Both Gibson (2002, p. 122) and Weed (2008a, p. 569) refer to
Gartners (1996, p. 317) comment that sport tourism will probably
625
develop its own cadre of researchers, and they each suggest that
this has now happened. However, as well as the various journeys
that scholars from this cadre of researchers have taken over the
sports tourism research terrain, there have also been challenges
and critiques of work in sports tourism from outside. In the past,
such challenges have been related to the conceptualisation of the
area, or even of its existence as a serious area of study, as noted by
Gammon and Kurtzman (2002, p. v):
Of course, as with many new areas of academic interest, those
writing and researching in the area have been accused of
clumsily diluting two already established disciplines in order to
prot from professional precedence and thus committing the
indefensible crime of academic triviality.
However, one more recent critique, while acknowledging that
these criticisms have taken place in the past, offers a new challenge
to sports tourism researchers. Dimeo (2008, p. 603) suggests that
sports tourism suffers from too great a focus on management
perspectives and that the desire to draw from and please user
organisations means that sports tourism has lacked any sustained
critical edge. Dimeo (2008) believes that the study of sports
tourism would benet from the attention of a group of theorists
attacking foundational management ideas based on the
assumption that sports tourism is a good thing that could be made
better through efcient management and clear understanding of
contributing groups (p. 603). In particular, Dimeo (2008) suggests
that such theorists might argue that sport tourism should be
extensively regulated, or even banned, for moral ecological and
social reasons, and that the next stage in the evolution of sports
tourism is a body of work that sets out to undermine the value of
sports tourism per se (p. 603).
While it may be a little unfair to suggest that the study of sports
tourism lacks any critical edge, Dimeos (2008) challenge and
critique should not be ignored or dismissed. There are a number of
potential responses, from a number of different perspectives:
a management response, for example, could incorporate such
critiques into strategy; a policy response could investigate the
extent to which regulation has been considered; or a sociological
response could critique the existence of sports tourism. What is
clear, however, is that the most inadequate response would be not
to engage in the debate.
4. Conclusion: maturing futures
Weeds (2008a) commentaries in his Reader discuss the extent
to which sports tourism might be reaching a stage of maturity as an
academic eld. He identies various markers of such maturity
including, inter alia: a strong conceptualisation of the eld; the
underpinning of empirical work by appropriate theory; the robust,
appropriate and transparent application of methods and methodology; and a clear community of scholars with a sustained interest
in the area, served by and supporting a credible academic journal
(the Journal of Sport & Tourism) and wider body of knowledge.
While each of these markers has now developed in the study of
sports tourism, the discussions in this meta-review and exploration
of futures suggest that there may be two further developing indicators of the maturity of the study of sports tourism.
The rst is that a unied view of sports tourism may be unattainable. Researchers in a mature eld of study will recognise that
even foundational ideas are contested. As a greater volume of work
in sports tourism develops, it is inevitable that competing
perspectives will emerge. However, as McFee (2007) notes,
researchers in a mature eld of social science will recognise that the
existence of contested ideas is a healthy state of affairs, because it
brings a range of alternative perspectives to bear on the issues
626
researchers in the eld face, none of which will be dominant or

hegemonic.
The second further indicator of maturity is that researchers in
the eld can be reexive, self-critical and responsive to external
challenges. To a certain extent, the development of maturity in this
area is related to a recognition of the need for multiple perspectives
outlined above. A eld in which researchers do not recognise and
respond to external critiques and challenges will fall into the
paradigm-trap of becoming self-referential (Bailey, 2006) and,
eventually, irrelevant in wider debates on major social science
issues such as global warming and economic development.
Despite aspiring to avoid an epiphanic conclusion, this metareview and exploration of futures suggest that the journey(s)
towards a mature eld of sports tourism research are likely to
involve a comfortableness among researchers with the existence
of contested perspectives and ideas, and a reexive appreciation of
the strengths and weaknesses of research in the eld, particularly
in response to external challenges and critiques.
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Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Progress in Tourism Management

Progress in sports tourism research? A meta-review and exploration of futures

There is a temptation, perhaps even a tradition, when writing

* Tel.: 44 1227 782743.

Of course, the problem here, other than the philosophical one, is

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

research in the eld, and an interrogation of the explicit and

1. Reviewing sports tourism research

The reviews comprise seven introductory overviews, four

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

Sport for All & Active Tourism

Published Conference Keynote

Narrative Literature Review

Published Conference Keynote

Narrative Literature Review

Standeven and Tomlinson (1994)

years earlier. Consequently, this relatively long report (60 pages)

2. Progress in sports tourism

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

mass participation at a non-elite level (for example, as one of

the activities described or observed would be confused with

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

The scope of the 18 reviews varies in relation to geographical

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

2006), Hudson (2001), Kasimati (2003) and Preuss (2005, 2007),

through sports tourism literature in compiling his report, he would

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

by solo hikers; Fluker and Turners (2000) investigation of the

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

perspectives of the authors clearly impact upon their subject

have started, the points at which their journeys overlap or intersect,

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

sociology, geography, anthropology political science), something

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

3.3. Futures of the nature of sports tourism

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

researchers in the eld face, none of which will be dominant or

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

M. Weed / Tourism Management 30 (2009) 615628

Weed, M. E. (Ed.). (2008a). Sport & tourism: A reader. London: Routledge.

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