To explore the high-quality development paths of district-level sports event tourism in the era of digital economy, this study takes Kaizhou District of Chongqing as the research object, and systematically analyzes the development foundation, process, current situation, core dilemmas, and breakthrough strategies of sports event tourism by integrating its resource endowments and practical development characteristics. The findings show that: Based on local natural and humanistic resources as well as the tourism reception system, sports event tourism in Kaizhou District has gone through three stages, namely initial exploration, rapid development, and quality upgrading. It has formed a complementary and integrated sports event system covering water-based, mountain-based, and folk-custom-based events, along with a government-enterprise-media collaborative operation mechanism. During the period of industrial digital transformation, sports event tourism in Kaizhou District faces dilemmas such as lack of digital experiences, absence of digital marketing, and the weakness of the digital support system. Therefore, this study proposes development strategies including innovating sports event tourism experiences, strengthening digital marketing, and enhancing the digital support system. These strategies provide references for the transformation of sports event tourism in Kaizhou District and similar districts in central and western China.

Xiaoya Huang. Research on the Development Dilemmas and Breakthrough Strategies of Sports Event Tourism in the Digital Economy Era: A Case Study of Kaizhou District. Academic Journal of Business & Management (2025), Vol. 7, Issue 11: 74-82. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJBM.2025.071111.

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