Abstract: In order to lay a solid foundation for judging future research hotpots and trend, the present study summarized the perspectives, theories and methodologies of sport tourism researches by analyzing relevant papers based on the methods of scoping review. Firstly, papers published from 2000 to 2017 were searched in Elsevier and CNKI database, with Chinese papers limited to CSSCI source journals (2017-2018). A total of 25,192 papers were retrieved and 986 papers were included after sorting and selecting process. The papers were then analyzed from the four basic research perspectives of corporate, consumer, government and multi-subject interaction, as well as researcher perspective. The findings revealed that, (1) government and multi-subject interaction are currently the two primary perspectives; (2) studies from both consumer and researcher perspectives are expanding their influence, while studies from corporate perspective has so far been the least; (3) the definition of sport tourism is still under discussion, from which come three conceptual frameworks, while mature theoretical foundation has not yet formed; (4) qualitative methodology predominates and papers using quantitative methodology account for less than 25%, with questionnaire survey being the major method. Therefore, future studies should strengthen basic and quantitative research, and combine mature theories in multiple subjects to promote the theoretical system of sport tourism from the four basic research perspectives.

Key words: sport tourism, scoping review, participants, research perspective, conceptual framework, current situation