A fuzzy multi-criteria decision method for ecotourism development locating

The County of Khorram-Abad enjoys a high potential for ecotourism because of its mountains, forests, natural mineral springs, natural waterfalls and diversity in folks and cultures. But, un-planned and uncontrolled ecotourism can have negative effects on environment, economy, culture and even the security of eco-tourists. The main purpose of this study is to present a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (FMCDM) method for ecotourism development location selection. In this study we created 5 main criteria and 14 sub-criteria for locating the suitable areas for ecotourism development from literature reviews and experts opinions. Delphi method was used to obtain the significant criteria and sub-criteria for ecotourism development by interviewing the foregoing experts and related managers. Then, the methods of fuzzy set theory, linguistic value, hierarchical structure analysis, and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) were applied to find the relative weights or importance degree of each criterion and rank the overall criteria as the measurable indices for ecotourism development. Different layers were prepared and were combined using weighted linear combination (WLC) method in GIS environment. The results showed that 6.57 and 38.65 percentages of the area have an excellent and good potential for the ecotourism development, respectively. In addition, the study confirm that the combination of FAHP with GIS could be a powerful combination to apply for different land use planning.