TY - JOUR

T1 - Diverting the tourists

T2 - A spatial decision-support system for tourism planning on a developing island

AU - Beedasy, Jaishree

AU - Whyatt, Duncan

PY - 1999/1/1

Y1 - 1999/1/1

N2 - Mauritius is a small island (1865 km2) in the Indian Ocean. Tourism is the third largest economic sector of the country, after manufacturing and agriculture. A limitation of space and the island's vulnerable ecosystem warrants a rational approach to tourism development. The main problems so far have been to manipulate and integrate all the factors affecting tourism planning and to match spatial data with their relevant attributes. A Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for sustainable tourism planning is therefore proposed. The proposed SDSS design would include a GIS as its core component. A first GIS model has already been constructed with available data. Supporting decision-making in a spatial context is implicit in the use of GIS. However the analytical capability of the GIS has to be enhanced to solve semi-structured problems, where subjective judgements come into play. The second part of the paper deals with the choice, implementation and customisation of a relevant model to develop a specialised SDSS. Different types of models and techniques are discussed, in particular a comparison of compensatory and non-compensatory approaches to multicriteria evaluation (MCE). It is concluded that compensatory multicriteria evaluation techniques increase the scope of the present GIS model as a decision-support tool. This approach gives the user or decision-maker the flexibility to change the importance of each criterion depending on relevant objectives.

AB - Mauritius is a small island (1865 km2) in the Indian Ocean. Tourism is the third largest economic sector of the country, after manufacturing and agriculture. A limitation of space and the island's vulnerable ecosystem warrants a rational approach to tourism development. The main problems so far have been to manipulate and integrate all the factors affecting tourism planning and to match spatial data with their relevant attributes. A Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for sustainable tourism planning is therefore proposed. The proposed SDSS design would include a GIS as its core component. A first GIS model has already been constructed with available data. Supporting decision-making in a spatial context is implicit in the use of GIS. However the analytical capability of the GIS has to be enhanced to solve semi-structured problems, where subjective judgements come into play. The second part of the paper deals with the choice, implementation and customisation of a relevant model to develop a specialised SDSS. Different types of models and techniques are discussed, in particular a comparison of compensatory and non-compensatory approaches to multicriteria evaluation (MCE). It is concluded that compensatory multicriteria evaluation techniques increase the scope of the present GIS model as a decision-support tool. This approach gives the user or decision-maker the flexibility to change the importance of each criterion depending on relevant objectives.

KW - GIS

KW - Mauritius

KW - MCE

KW - SDSS

KW - Tourism Planning

U2 - 10.1016/S0303-2434(99)85009-0

DO - 10.1016/S0303-2434(99)85009-0

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:33646257340

VL - 1

SP - 163

EP - 174

JO - ITC Journal

JF - ITC Journal

SN - 0303-2434

IS - 3-4

ER -