Defining sport tourism: a content analysis of an evolving epistemology

ABSTRACT

This paper conducts a systematic evaluation of one of the primary journals in the field of sport tourism research since its establishment in 1993. Drawing on extant literature with varying disciplinary approaches, this meta-review traces the development of key concepts and definitions underlying an evolving epistemology connected to sport tourism, as evidenced within the Journal of Sport & Tourism (JS&T). It does so by examining research specific to content previously unexplored. The study first conducted a content analysis based upon a keyword search, focusing on phrases in which sport and tourism appeared together. The study reviewed all texts, including articles, book chapters and editorials (n = 517), for the years 1993–2014. We then constructed a thematic analysis based upon the most common defining elements found within these texts. These extracted definitions were analyzed according to their paradigmatic elements. Based on these findings, this paper suggests the need to further define the epistemological boundaries of sport tourism for the twenty-first century.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport tourism
• content analysis
• epistemology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Sorina Cernaianu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4820-016X

Notes

1. The Journal of Sport Tourism (JST) was published electronically from 1995 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005, a hard copy was published under the journal’s original name. From 2006 to present, the Journal of Sport & Tourism (JS&T) has been published in both an electronic and hard copy form.

2. We would like to thank one of our anonymous reviewers for providing this important insight.