Nature sports: state of the art of research

ABSTRACT

In the same way, as society has been experiencing significant changes in recent years, sport practice has evolved to acquire extraordinary importance, both socially and economically. At the moment, we are faced with a wide range of sports related to nature and outdoors as an alternative to sporting activities that were done traditionally. This diversity is precisely one of the reasons why there is still no unanimity between authors when it comes to establishing a single term that comprises such a large field of physical activities. Thus, these new sports can be denominated nature sports, adventure sports, alternative sports or lifestyle sports, among others. A descriptive and exploratory bibliometric study of the articles included in the multidisciplinary Scopus (Elsevier) database was carried out in order to analyse the current scientific production related to nature sports. Thus, it was found that of the 223 papers selected, a quarter of them use the term extreme sports to refer to sports practise in nature and only 5% use the term nature sports. The results obtained show the growing interest of the scientific community for the study of this subject in the last decade, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom and France and in the areas of social sciences, medicine and health care, business, administration and accounting.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport practice
• nature sports
• extreme sports
• adventure sports
• bibliometric study
• Scopus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Amador Durán-Sánchez is Ph. Doctorate Student Research Program in the area of Public Law University of Extremadura (Spain), and Degree in Administration and Business Management by the University of Extremadura. Master’s Degree in Social Science Research University of Extremadura (Spain). His main research topics are: Business, Tourism, Sport Management and Higher Education.

José Álvarez-García, PhD in Tourism Management and Planning, University of Vigo, Spain. Professor and researcher in the Department of Financial Economics and Accounting at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Tourism of Cáceres (University of Extremadura, Spain). Main lines of research: Quality Management Systems, Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Sport Management and Higher Education.

María de la Cruz Del Río-Rama, PhD in Business Management, University of Vigo, Spain. Professor and Researcher of the Department of Business Organization and Marketing at the Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism, University of Vigo, Ourense, Spain. Main lines of research: Quality Management Systems, Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Sport Management and Higher Education.

Notes

1 Gold Open Access is when publications are freely available online to all at no cost and with limited restrictions with regards reuse.