Assessing and Considering the Wider Impacts of Sport-Tourism Events: A Research Agenda Review of Sustainability and Strategic Planning Elements

Sport-tourism events create a broad spectrum of impacts on and for host communities. However, sustainable sport-tourism events, which emphasize positive impacts, and minimize negative impacts, do not arise by chance-they need careful planning and implementation. This paper aims to review and systematize a wide spectrum of social impacts that outdoor sport-tourism events create from the perspective of key stakeholders and addresses strategic planning elements necessary for achieving event sustainability. To reach its objectives, the authors examined the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database, searching for relevant scientific papers focusing primarily on the impacts and legacy of sport events, strategic planning elements, and attributes necessary for achieving sustainability through a systematic quantitative review and content analysis. The results indicate that the relevant literature mostly focuses on economic impacts, followed by social and environmental impacts. Most studies focus on Europe and Asia, with the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups being the most popular type of event studied. To systemize event and destination strategic elements and attributes for achieving sustainability, this study considers eight categories: social, cultural, organizational, logistic, communication, economic, tourism, and environmental. This paper identifies the main research gaps, proposes a new holistic sport-tourism events research agenda and provides recommendations so that organizers can avoid planning, organizing, financing mistakes and better leverage future sporting events.