Volunteer Sport Tourism: A Comprehensive Literature Review

This systematic literature review synthesises existing knowledge on volunteer sport tourism—the intersection of volunteering, sport, and tourism—in order to clarify its evolution, theoretical foundations, and practical implications, and to address the fragmentation of the field across disciplines. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and doctoral dissertations published in English between January 1974 and December 2025 were retrieved from Web of Science, Scopus, SportDiscus, and Google Scholar, complemented by citation tracking. Studies focused on volunteers travelling to sporting events were included; conference abstracts, editorials, and works addressing only local volunteering or general tourism were excluded. The methodological quality of 32 included studies was appraised narratively by two authors independently against three criteria, with disagreements resolved through discussion. Findings were integrated through a thematic narrative synthesis supported by analytical mapping tables. The review identifies five dominant themes: motivations, volunteer experiences and satisfaction, economic and social impacts, organisational and management perspectives, and destination and legacy dimensions. The synthesis contributes to theoretical development by proposing an integrated tripartite framework that connects volunteer antecedents, event experiences, and legacy outcomes, and offers practical recommendations for event organisers, policymakers, and destination stakeholders. The review was conducted without pre-registration.