Key Trends in Sports Tourism (2026)

Powered by

All the vital news, analysis, and commentary curated by our industry experts.

$1495
Buy Report Download FREE Resources

Published: April 29, 2026 Report Code: GDTT-IR26-03-ST

Select Item

Explore the sports tourism market with insights into sports travellers, consumer trends, niche sports, destinations, cultural experiences, sector deals, opportunities, and key industry challenges.

Why Does the Sport Tourism Market Matter?

Sports tourism is evolving as travellers increasingly incorporate sporting activities and experiences into their travel decisions. From participation in niche sports to stadium tours and other sports-related cultural experiences, the sector creates opportunities for destinations, sports teams, and tourism operators.

This report provides insight into the sports travel sector, covering sports travellers, consumer behaviour, destinations, market trends, sector deals, opportunities, and challenges.

You can use this report to:

  • Understand the motivations and behaviours of sports travellers
  • Identify emerging sports tourism trends
  • Assess the role of niche sports in travel decisions
  • Explore key sports tourism destinations
  • Identify opportunities for sports teams, destinations, and tour operators
  • Understand challenges affecting the sports travel sector

Key Insights in the Sport Tourism Market

The report highlights key trends shaping sports tourism, including:

  • Growing interest in niche sports as a key or supplementary factor in travel decisions
  • Rising participation in pickleball in the US, with more than 36 million participants recorded in 2022
  • Opportunities to attract cultural tourists through stadium tours and hall of fame visits
  • Potential for sports teams and destinations to combine sporting and cultural experiences
  • Consumer interest in sports-related travel experiences
  • Evolving destinations and experiences shaping the sports travel sector
  • Sector deals and developments influencing the market
  • Emerging opportunities and challenges for sports tourism businesses

Scope

What Will You Learn from This Sport Tourism Market Analysis Report?

This report provides insight into:

  • The sports tourism and sports travel sector

  • Sports traveller behaviours and preferences

  • Key consumer trends influencing sports tourism

  • The role of niche sports in travel decisions

  • Key sports tourism destinations

  • Cultural experiences such as stadium tours and hall of fame visits

  • Sector deals and market developments

  • Opportunities emerging across sports tourism

  • Challenges facing the sector

  • Trends shaping the future of sports travel

Who Should Buy This Sport Tourism Market Analysis Report?

This report may be valuable for:

  • Tourism boards and destination marketing organizations

  • Sports teams and sporting organizations

  • Sports event organizers

  • Hotels and hospitality businesses

  • Tour operators and travel companies

  • Sports tourism specialists

  • Stadium and venue operators

  • Travel and tourism strategy teams

  • Marketing and consumer insights professionals

  • Investors and tourism consultants

How Companies Use This Sport Tourism Market Analysis

Businesses across sports and tourism can use the report to:

  • Understand sports traveller motivations and behaviours

  • Identify emerging consumer trends and niche sports opportunities

  • Develop sports-focused travel experiences

  • Evaluate potential destinations for sports tourism

  • Create cultural experiences around sporting venues and teams

  • Identify opportunities for partnerships and sector deals

  • Develop tourism marketing and destination strategies

  • Respond to emerging challenges in the sports travel sector

Key Highlights

  • It has been observed that a significant number of tourists are engaging in niche sports as a key or supplementary factor for their travel decisions. The popularity of pickleball in the US experienced a significant increase in 2022, with more than 36 million individuals participating in the sport. This figure represents a substantial rise from the number of people who played pickleball in 2021.

  • Cultural tourists can be attracted by offering experiences such as stadium tours and hall of fame visits, which can be utilized by sports teams, destinations, and specialized tour operators. GlobalData’s Q3 2021 Consumer Survey reveals that a significant proportion of global respondents have expressed a penchant for cultural trips.

  • The popularity of pickleball in the US experienced a significant increase in 2022, with over 36 million individuals participating in the sport. This figure represents a substantial rise in the number of people who played pickleball in 2021.

Reasons to Buy

Benchmark the Sport Tourism Landscape

This report enables stakeholders to benchmark:

  • Sports traveller trends and behaviours

  • Consumer preferences across sports travel

  • Niche sports influencing travel decisions

  • Key sports tourism destinations

  • Sports-related cultural experiences

  • Sector deals and market developments

  • Emerging opportunities

  • Key challenges affecting sports tourism

Built on GlobalData Travel & Tourism Intelligence

The report combines analysis of sports travel trends, consumer behaviour, destinations, sector developments, opportunities, and challenges to provide a structured view of the sports tourism landscape.

It also draws on GlobalData consumer research to provide insight into traveller preferences and the potential for sports-related cultural experiences.

Act Now to Identify Opportunities in Sport Tourism

As sporting activities and experiences increasingly influence travel decisions, businesses that understand changing traveller preferences can identify new opportunities across destinations, experiences, partnerships, and tourism offerings.

Use this report to understand sports travellers, identify emerging trends and destinations, develop differentiated experiences, and uncover opportunities across the evolving sports tourism sector.

NFL
Hyrox
PDC
Ryder Cup
NBA
FIFA

Table of Contents

Overview

Sports Tourists Profiles

Key Trends

Post Event Analysis

Sponsorship Trends

Opportunities and Challenges

Appendix

Key Trends in Sports Tourism (2026) standard reports
Currency USD
$1,495

Can be used by individual purchaser only

Most Popular
$2,242

Can be shared by unlimited users within one corporate location e.g. a regional office

$2,990

Can be shared globally by unlimited users within the purchasing corporation e.g. all employees of a single company

Add to Basket

Undecided about purchasing this report?

Enquire Before Buying Download FREE Resources

Get in touch to find out about multi-purchase discounts

reportstore@globaldata.com
Tel +44 20 7947 2745

Sample Report

Key Trends in Sports Tourism (2026) was curated by the best experts in the industry and we are confident about its unique quality. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer free sample pages to help you:

  • Assess the relevance of the report
  • Evaluate the quality of the report
  • Justify the cost

Download your copy of the sample report and make an informed decision about whether the full report will provide you with the insights and information you need.

Below is a sample report to understand what you are buying

See what our customers are saying
testimonial-image
testimonial-image
testimonial-image
testimonial-image
testimonial-image
testimonial-image
testimonial-image

“The GlobalData platform is our go-to tool for intelligence services. GlobalData provides an easy way to access comprehensive intelligence data around multiple sectors, which essentially makes it a one-for-all intelligence platform, for tendering and approaching customers.

GlobalData is very customer orientated, with a high degree of personalised services, which benefits everyday use. The highly detailed project intelligence and forecast reports can be utilised across multiple departments and workflow scopes, from operational to strategic level, and often support strategic decisions. GlobalData Analytics and visualisation solutions has contributed positively when preparing management presentations and strategic papers.”

 Business Intelligence & Marketing Manager, SAL Heavy Lift

“COVID-19 has caused significant interference to our business and the COVID-19 intelligence from GlobalData has helped us reach better decisions around strategy. These two highlights have helped enormously to understand the projections into the future concerning our business units, we also utilise the project database to source new projects for Liebherr-Werk to use as an additional source to pitch for new business.”

 Market Analyst & Management, Liebherr-Werk

Your daily news has saved me a lot of time and keeps me up-to-date with what is happening in the market, I like that you almost always have a link to the source origin. We also use your market data in our Strategic Business Process to support our business decisions. By having everything in one place on the Intelligence Center it has saved me a lot of time versus looking on different sources, the alert function also helps with this.

 Head of Key Accounts, Saab AB

Having used several other market research companies, I find that GlobalData manages to provide that ‘difficult-to-get’ market data that others can’t, as well as very diverse and complete consumer surveys.

 Marketing Intelligence Manager, Portugal Foods

Our experience with GlobalData has been very good, from the platform itself to the people. I find that the analysts and the account team have a high level of customer focus and responsiveness and therefore I can always rely on. The platform is more holistic than other providers. It is convenient and almost like a one stop shop. The pricing suite is highly competitive and value for our organisation.

I like reports that inform new segments such as the analysis on generation Z, millennials, the impact of COVID 19 to our banking customers and their new channel habits. Secondly the specialist insight on affluent sector significantly increases our understanding about this group of customers. The combination of those give us depth and breadth of the evolving market.

I’m in the business of answering and helping people make decisions so with the intelligence center I can do that, effectively and efficiently. I can share quickly key insights that answer and satisfy our country stakeholders by giving them many quality studies and primary research about competitive landscape beyond the outlook of our bank. It helps me be seen as an advisory partner and that makes a big difference. A big benefit of our subscription is that no one holds the whole data and because it allows so many people, so many different parts of our organisation have access, it enables all teams to have the same level of knowledge and decision support.

 Head of Customer Insight and Research, Standard Chartered

“I know that I can always rely on Globaldata’s work when I’m searching for the right consumer and market insights. I use Globaldata insights to understand the changing market & consumer landscape and help create better taste & wellbeing solutions for our customers in food, beverage and healthcare industries.

Globaldata has the right data and the reports are of very high quality compared to your competitors. Globaldata not only has overall market sizes & consumer insights on food & beverages but also provides insights at the ingredient & flavour level. That is key for B2B companies like Givaudan. This way we understand our customers’ business and also gain insight to our unique industry”

 Head of Consumer Sensory Insights, Givaudan

GlobalData provides a great range of information and reports on various sectors that is highly relevant, timely, easy to access and utilise.  The reports and data dashboards help engagement with clients; they provide valuable industry and market insights that can enrich client conversations and can help in the shaping of value propositions. Moreover, using GlobalData products has helped increase my knowledge of the finance sector, the players within it, and the general threats and opportunities.

I find the consumer surveys that are carried out to be extremely beneficial and not something I have seen anywhere else. They provided an insightful view of why and which consumers take (or don’t) particular financial products. This can help shape conversations with clients to ensure they make the right strategic decisions for their business.

One of the challenges I have found is that data in the payments space is often piecemeal. With GD all of the data I need is in one place, but it also comes with additional market reports that provide useful extra context and information. Having the ability to set-up alerts on relevant movements in the industry, be it competitors or customers, and have them emailed directly to me, ensures I get early sight of industry activity and don’t have to search for news.

 Senior Account Manager, TSYS

Related reports

View more Travel and Tourism reports
Travel and Tourism
New
Key Trends in Gastronomy Tourism: Market Analysis by Destinations, Challenges…
$1,495 | August 2026
Travel and Tourism
Multi-stop Tourism: Market Trends, Destinations, Challenges and Opportunities, 2025 Update
$1,495 | July 2025
Travel and Tourism
Key Trends in Luxury Travel: Market Analysis by Destinations, Challenges…
$1,495 | May 2026
Go even deeper with GlobalData Intelligence Center

Every Company Report we produce is powered by the GlobalData Intelligence Center.

Subscribing to our intelligence platform means you can monitor developments at Key Trends in Sports Tourism (2026) in real time.

  • Access a live Key Trends in Sports Tourism (2026) dashboard for 12 months, with up-to-the-minute insights.
  • Fuel your decision making with real-time deal coverage and media activity.
  • Turn insights on financials, deals, products and pipelines into powerful agents of commercial advantage.
Tell me more