A Fuzzy Approach to Urban Ecotourism Site Selection Based on an Integrated Promethee III Methodology

Kaya A. O., Kaya T., Kahraman C.

JOURNAL OF MULTIPLE-VALUED LOGIC AND SOFT COMPUTING, vol.21, pp.89-111, 2013 (SCI-Expanded) identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 21
  • Publication Date: 2013
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF MULTIPLE-VALUED LOGIC AND SOFT COMPUTING
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.89-111
  • Keywords: Multicriteria, urban ecotourism, AHP, PROMETHEE III, fuzzy decision making, DECISION-MAKING, QUALITY, SERVICE, AHP, NUMBER
  • Istanbul Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Urban ecotourism is defined as the travel and exploration activities which take place in and around a city that provides visitors and residents with a greater appreciation and conservation of the cities' natural and cultural resources. Planning ecotourism activities in the urban context is a multidimensional task which requires consideration of environmental, social, and economic issues. The purpose of this study is to propose a fuzzy multicriteria approach for the selection of the most appropriate site(s) for promoting ecotourism activities in urban areas using a modified PROMETHEE methodology. In the suggested methodology, the importance weights of the evaluation criteria are determined by a fuzzy pair-wise comparisons procedure. The fuzzy sets theory is a good tool for dealing with subjective and implicit human judgments. PROMETHEE III outranking methodology is used to make a prioritization among seven different districts of Istanbul. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to test the robustness of the results.