Because a large number of tourists flock to areas in search of sun and sea, a feasible site-selection method for tourism based on supply and demand was created. The area selected for case study was the coast of Guilan Province. Traditionally recreation and coastal protection were of high concern in beach management, but ocean and coastal tourism is one of the fastest growing areas on tourism today. Therefore, beach management will attempt to accommodate this purpose as the tourism industry requires a beach. GIS is being used because it can choose an ideal selection based on several independent factors.
In order to select destinations of sustainable coastal tourism, 3 procedures were exercised:
1) Using GIS to generate information layers to develop a digital database in which the spatial information is formed.
2) Exercising GIS to analyze the layers to determine primary coastal tourism sites.
3) Exercising GIS to analyze information to determine the priority of the sustainable coastal tourism destination.
Based on previous research finding, information was available in six parameters: topography, water source, distance from the fault, flora, fauna, and soil. These items were weighted based on one and zero logic – the area was either considered good or bad. The results from the application are sustainable coastal destinations and these areas will be ranked and classified in order of priority of different options. Results came up with 15 sites that were candidate for a more detailed evaluation (shown below).
The competitiveness of a destination refers to its ability to compete effectively and profitably in the tourism marketplace while still able to be sustainable and maintain the quality of its physical, social, cultural, and environmental resources while competing in this marketplace. According to the final weight of each criterion in combination with the candidate areas, the sites were categorized and are priority. Now that the study has been conducted, the next step is to find out a suitable area for the tourism based on infrastructure, competitiveness and supply, socioeconomic, and land use/tourist facilities and service. This proposed method may be used for site selection in other locations and sectors of the tourism industry.
Site selection seems to be a common use of GIS. It's a great way to quantify qualitative data, such as the desirability of the certain characteristics of the beaches. Makes me wonder how decisions like this were made before. It would be interesting to see how or if GIS could be used to complete the rest of this project in considering broader factors such as infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like a very useful way of finding out the ecologically and economically best places for eco-tourism. However, I wonder if there are ways to incorporate the local communities in these mapping projects and if there are ways to ensure that eco-tourism will benefit the local as opposed to the national or international communities.
ReplyDeleteAlso- what country is this in?
ReplyDeleteThe Guilian Province is in Iran.
ReplyDelete