Investigation of Sustainable Rural Tourism Activities With Different Risk: A GIS‐MCDM Case in Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

The tourism industry today is an important source of income, an effective factor in cultural exchanges between countries, and the world's largest service industry. Especially in developed countries, tourism plays a crucial role in combating poverty and increasing income, reducing unemployment, and boosting economic prosperity, thereby improving the quality of life and increasing social welfare. In recent years, rural tourism has emerged as one of the most important and fundamental strategies for the growth and development of rural areas since the 1950s (Liu et al., 2020). The tourism industry has been one of the most important development activities in developing countries, especially in rural areas (Liu et al., 2020). In rural areas, tourism plays an important role in combating poverty and unemployment (Cunha et al., 2020;Liu et al., 2020). In addition to becoming an integral part of rural development strategies (Ayhan et al., 2020;Carneiro et al., 2015), it is also a sustainable driver of rural socio-economic development (Randelli & Martellozzo, 2019). New investments in the tourism industry are bringing sustainable job opportunities with an acceptable level of income (Martinez et al., 2019). Rural areas have different capacities and attractions, which have led to the development of various types of tourism (Xu et al., 2017). However, tourism activities also carry environmental risks, such as resource waste (Martínez et al., 2019), soil and water pollution (Ciarkowska, 2018) and serious damage to ecosystem services .Selecting appropriate locations for tourism activities is a necessary step for maintaining environmental sustainability. Tourism attractions should be used properly to reduce the vulnerability of ecosystems and prevent waste of tourist's time and money. The best location for tourism activities has been assessed using a variety of quantification methodologies, which are summarized in Table 1. In Jeong et al. ( 2016), high-potential suitability areas (17.3% of the region) were determined using the weighted linear combination (WLC) method. However, various approaches have been developed to evaluate tourism sites in recent years, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Multi-Criterion Assessments (MCEs), fuzzy logic and network analysis processes (ANPs) (Aliani et al., 2017), and remote sensing techniques (Ayhan et al., 2020). Based on the MCDS method, it is possible to generate land suitability maps with different risk levels in GIS. Fuzzy-Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) was used by Zabihi et al. (2020) for assessing the relative importance of natural, environmental, and socio-economic factors in Babol for ecotourism. Among these models, the F-AHP model proved mNost reliable for identifying tourist destinations (Mokarram & Sathyamoorthy, 2016).Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) is a multicriteria evaluation method developed by Cheng et al. (2012). In contrast to the previous models, it incorporates interactions between contrasting objectives to gather data and make a collective decision. Accor...

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“… [ 23 ] Sustainable rural tourism prioritization OWA-AHP The study prioritizes rural tourism activities in Isfahan province using MCDM, highlighting mountaineering and canyoning as optimal options for tourism development based on risk assessment. [ 24 ] Sustainable island tourism development framework Fuzzy MCDM The paper introduces a framework using a hybrid approach for sustainable island-based tourism development, demonstrating its applications and highlighting the preference for a medium-size development plan. [ 25 ] Economic impact on sustainable tourism CRITIC-VIKOR The paper aims to address over tourism in Spain by proposing indicators using an integrated MCDM approach, highlighting economic indicators' negative impact on sustainable tourism.…”