The Bibliometric Analysis Of Sports Tourism In China During 2000-2014

This paper takes 464 sport tourism papers published on 17 Chinese core journals in 2000-2014 decade as investigation object, and analyses the progress, the hotspots and the development trend of sport tourism research in China, through literature study, bibliometric analysis and mathematical statistics method. The main research results are:1. The research achievement of sports tourism in China has increased since 2001, and came to a climax between 2011 and 2005. Although the number of literature from 2012 to 2014 has dropped somewhat, but it has increased significantly compared to 2000. During the last fifteen years, Chinese government has introduced various policies to stimulate the sports industry and tourism industry, which enhance the development of sport tourism academic research.2. Overall, Chinese academic literatures on sports tourism are mainly concentrated in Sports Culture Guide, Journal of Beijing Sport University and Journal of Shandong Physical Education Institute. High level und papers are published in Journal of Beijing Sport University and Journal of Xi’an Institute of Physical Education.3. Over the last fifteen years, the sport tourism researchers in China attached more importance to practice research than theoretical research. The researches included nine aspects:sports tourism resources, sports tourism planning and marketing management, regional sports tourism, basic theory of sports tourism, sports tourism and social economy, sports tourists analysis, sports tourism and ecological environment, the cultivating model of China’s sports tourism professionals and sports tourism policy. Most literatures focused on sports tourism resources, regional sports tourism and sport tourism planning and marketing management.4. Few research method and analysis model are used in Chinese academic literatures on sports tourism. Chinese literature and periodical literature shared the main part of citations. In future studies, researchers should pay more attention to foreign theory and research results.5. In the last fifteen years, the majority of Chinese sports tourism literatures came from comprehensive universities, but the core authors were still a relative weak group. In order to promote the deeply research on sports tourism, the cooperation between disciplines and regions should be strengthened.