Introduction This study develops an integrated, evidence-informed strategic framework to accelerate sports-industry development in emerging markets, using southern Vietnam as a case study. Its objective is to translate macro-environmental diagnosis and stakeholder judgment into a prioritized, implementable PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) roadmap that reconciles policy, market, infrastructure and human-capital imperatives for sustainable sectoral growth. Methods A mixed-methods design synthesized (1) PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) scanning, (2) SWOT/TOWS-driven strategic option generation, and (3) a four-round Delphi consultation with a purposive panel of 25 domain experts (government, academia, private sector). Delphi procedures followed established best practice (anonymity, iterative feedback, prespecified consensus thresholds); results are reported as medians and IQRs with binomial 95% confidence intervals and inter-rater agreement indices where applicable. The synthesis translated validated solutions into a PDCA implementation roadmap and identified measurable indicators for monitoring and iterative refinement. Results PEST and SWOT analyses show strong political commitment and rising private investment, but persistent institutional fragmentation and infrastructure shortfalls. Empirical validation indicates a rapidly expanding domestic market (estimated ≈ USD 300 million in 2024; annual growth >6.0%), and increased central budget allocations for sport. Delphi participants reached robust consensus (median ratings ≥ 4.2/5) endorsing priority interventions: enactment of a Sports Industry Development Law; standardized facility and service quality frameworks; scaled public-private partnerships for facility provision; creation of workforce development pathways; and operationalization of sports-GDP measurement. The PDCA roadmap operationalizes these priorities into phased pilots, scaled interventions, monitoring metrics, and institutionalization steps. Discussion The integrated PEST→TOWS→Delphi→PDCA sequence offers a pragmatic template for translating strategic diagnosis into policy action. Key implementation risks include limited institutional capacity, precision limits of small expert panels, and the need for rigorous evidence synthesis before national scale-up. Embedding systematic evidence-review methods ( e.g ., PRISMA-informed syntheses, CFIR/RE-AIM mapping) and culturally validated benchmarking instruments will strengthen transferability and enable comparability across Asia-Pacific contexts. Conclusion The proposed strategic roadmap provides an actionable, iterative pathway for emerging economies to harness sports as an economic and social asset. Prioritizing legal clarity, standards, targeted PPPs, human-capital investments, and robust monitoring will help Vietnam-and similar markets-transition from nascent activity clusters to a resilient sports industry. Full analytic detail, Delphi instruments, and appendices are provided in the manuscript.
Binh et al. (Mon,) studied this question.