Literature Review: An economic overview of the U.S. pickleball boom and tourism

There is a “not so new” entrant into the American sports tourism market, and it's changing the way tourism and destination players approach and see their business today; that sport is Pickleball.

Named the fastest growing sports in the U.S. in 2024 according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), this exploratory literature review journeys across the world of Pickleball tourism to understand how much academic literature there is on this growing business, the opportunities within the sports’ growth in the country and also the challenges tourism destinations face in integrating pickleball into their main attraction for visitors.

We also tried to understand the impact of Pickleball’s challenges on the everyday American who might want to adopt the sport as the current model leaves an “elitist perception” of the sport even with a very low barrier of entry.

The last five years have seen an increasing number of participation in the sports but research is showing that court availability and accessibility needs to match the incredibly high demand for involvement in the sport