Application of multi-criteria analysis and GIS in ecotourism development (Case study: Serbian Danube region)

Abstract

Ecotourism can be defined as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and cultural heritage and improves the well-being of local people. Sustainable planning and management of ecotourism development are important and necessary for increasing positive and decreasing negative effects on the complex environment. This paper analyses the suitability of selected protected natural areas in the Serbian Danube region for the purposes of ecotourism development. The multi-criteria analysis includes several natural and socio-economic factors and criteria which influence ecotourism development. The integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) greatly facilitates the decision-making process in the ecotourism destination planning. A suitability map of the analysed protected natural areas for ecotourism development as one of the sustainable tourism types is highlighted as a result of this paper. Such analysis assists in the objective promotion of ecotourism destinations and thus contributes to the improvement of Serbian tourism development. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 176008]

GIS analysis of land use changes: Case study: The Stara Pazova municipality, Serbia

“…Spatial overlay of thematic maps, i.e. logical overlaps which a looking for the intersection of objects and phenomena with particular characteristics, as well as the map algebra is greatly facilitated by the use of GIS software (Stojković et al, 2015). Likewise, GIS application enables cartographic visualization of obtained results.…”

A Spatial Analytic Hierarchy Process for Identification of Water Pollution with GIS Software in an Eco-Economy Environment

“…ELECTRE (Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality) is a very simple method and it should be applied only when all the criteria have been coded in numerical scales with identical ranges [28,29]. ANP (Analytic Network Process) is a multicriteria methodology that is able to consider a wide range of quantitative and qualitative criteria, according to a complex model [7,9]. PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation) is a multi-criteria decision aid system that permits the building of an outranking between different alternatives [30].…”

A GIS–AHP-based approach in siting MSW landfills in Lokoja, Nigeria

“…AHP model was adopted in this research in order to give value to the criteria and select the best appropriate site. The incorporation of AHP and GIS facilitates decision-making process significantly [36,37]. Satty [38] was the first to propound AHP and it is asserted to be one of the best decision-making methods.…”