Evaluation of the Attractiveness of Tourism in Algeria: Multicriteria Method Applied to Areas of Tourist Expansion

Abstract

Tourist attractiveness is the ability of a destination to generate towards itself tourist flows. Its evaluation is crucial for the success of tourism development. The objective of this research is to develop a model for evaluating the attractiveness of tourist destinations to assess the attractiveness of the Larbi Ben M'Hidi tourist expansion area in Skikda, Algeria. The applied method uses both a qualitative diagnosis of the destination’s tourist resources and a quantitative visitor questionnaire survey to inventory, consolidate and evaluate the existing attraction portfolio from a supply and demand perspective. The results show that the landscape and climate are the elements of attraction. They identified the factors perceived as most important for the destination, its strengths and the weak indicators on which to act. Differences in evaluation have emerged between demand and supply, which shows that there are differences between the subjective and objective measure of tourist attractiveness. The proposed framework complements the body of theoretical knowledge on assessing the attractiveness of tourist destinations. In addition, by assessing and matching the differences between the reality of a destination and the perception of a visitor, they can help tourist destinations and their managers guide the development of their tourist areas.

Attractiveness Assessment Model for Evaluating an Area for a Potential Geopark—Case Study: Hațeg UNESCO Global Geopark (Romania)

“…Methodologically, starting by collection of data types and followed by processing methods, collection methods include observation, inventory-taking, sampling, and surveying, with questionnaires as the primary instrument. Questionnaires may use a Likert-type scale (i.e., endpoint descriptions from 1-very low to 5-very high) [28,30,32,37,65]. The variety of data processing methods can be categorized into the following groups: (a) statistical analysis ( 13 Due to the interest of researchers in attractiveness assessment and the variety of methods and techniques (52), we had the opportunity to create a solid database containing a high number of items, which were turned into in a large inventory of criteria; in total, 862 attractiveness attributes were inventoried.…”

“…Methodologically, starting by collection of data types and followed by processing methods, collection methods include observation, inventory-taking, sampling, and surveying, with questionnaires as the primary instrument. Questionnaires may use a Likerttype scale (i.e., endpoint descriptions from 1-very low to 5-very high) [28,30,32,37,65]. The variety of data processing methods can be categorized into the following groups: (a) statistical analysis ( 13); (b) mathematical analysis (11); (c) points role-based method (11); (d) GIS analysis ( 6); (e) Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) (3); SWOT analysis (1); and (f) combined methods (7).…”

“…Instead, the last decade has seen changes due to the diversity of methods applied. Thus, a new category of attributes has emerged, for example, a focus on safety and security [14,64,105] in various forms (such as the feeling of security [37], feeling of personal safety [9], peacefulness [38], security of the site [44]), which were applied in this study as well.…”

“…The statistical analysis used is represented by regression analysis [33,34]. Other approaches include the evaluation matrix for criteria [35], multidimensional statistical techniques [36], SWOT analysis [37], application of IPA [38], comparing RDA+CPA versus IPA [39], and the probabilistic travel model [40,41].…”