Abstract: With the rapid growth of marathon event worldwide, marathon event tourism has become an independent research field. Based on the key English literature and its timeline, the development and evolution of this field is analyzed and presented from the perspective of participants' personal characteristics, participants' travel attitude and behavior, marathon event's destination impact and supply. Based on the literature review, trends and hot topics of Chinese marathon practice, several implications for Chinese marathon event tourism practice are provided, and the future research directions in China are outlined from the interrelationship between marathon event and destination development, the social network structure of marathon organizers, marathon spectators and participants' companions, and the diversified marathon data.