Past, Present, and Future Studied on the Topic of Small-Scale Sports Events: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Sports events and sports tourism development are flourishing, and small-scale sports events are experiencing an exponential growth. Due to the gap between the lack of relevant research and the buoyancy of small-scale sports events in practice, it is imperative to systematically analyze the related studies. Utilizing CiteSpace and VOSviewer software, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on 39 papers on small-scale sports events indexed in Web of Science and Scopus. The analysis reveals that the topic of research on small-scale sports events is still in its nascent stage, with relatively few highly correlated research outcomes overall, but it demonstrates a steady upward trend. Within the realm of small-scale sports event research, subtopics such as tourism, sports tourism, image, and satisfaction stand out as academic hotspots. Notably, the content of this topic has evolved from examining economic impacts to social impacts, and the focus has shifted from tourists to local residents as the subjective of study. Moreover, the literature on small-scale sports events, despite in small numbers, contains a few highly influential academic works, establishing a solid theoretical foundation for related studies. Finally, a clear co-citation clustering of important reference works in small-scale sports events has emerged, not only providing a theoretical basis for a comprehensive understanding of small-scale sports events, but also outlining a clear knowledge framework for studying them from a tourism perspective.