ارزیابی مکان اکوتوریسم: آنالیز تصمیم چند معیاره بر اساس GIS Evaluation of ecotourism sites: a GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis

1. Introduction Ecotourism is a sustainable form of natural resource-based tourism. It focuses primarily on experiencing and learning about nature, its landscape, flora, fauna and their habitats, as well as cultural artifacts from the locality (Fung and Wong, 2007). Ecotourism trips are separated from other tourism varieties and basically, the tourist types are different. The key difference between tourism and ecotourism lies in involvements with nature; tourism is not much concerned about the well-being of local people and conservation of nature, but ecotourism tries to create a minimal impact on the people and the environment. The groups formed by eco-tourists are usually of fewer than 25 people and the accommodation areas for ecotourism do not exceed the capacity of 100 beds. Ecotourism is also an activity that is able to promote job creation and education in local communities. Today in Turkey, the cost of farming in the agricultural sector is frequently affected by economic fluctuations; thus, many farmer families prefer to choose jobs, except agriculture (Tekin and Kasalak, 2014). This situation leads to the increase in unemployment in the country; for this reason, ecotourism entrepreneurship has to be developed in rural areas to provide jobs for young people in the ecotourism regions. As Turkey has hosted many cultural habitats in the past and has a rich geographical structure, the country seems to be cut out from ecotourism. Turkey’s tourism potential can still be expanded by investing in the changing tourism concepts serving in natural places and avoiding the prevalence of mass tourism by stopping investments in big/flashy buildings. According to the tourism targets of Turkey determined by Ministry of Culture and Tourism for 2023, the Black Sea region is a region that aims to be developed primarily in terms of biodiversity and eco-tourism (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2007). The Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey is a good source of eco-tourism with its natural beauties, climatic conditions, historical sites and many other features. The Uzungöl basin, Altındere and Fırtına valley in Rize are especially important places for eco-tourism in Trabzon “within the scope of the” Yayla Tourism Project “initiated by the Ministry of Tourism in 1990, 26 highlands throughout Turkey and 20 highlands in the Eastern Black Sea region have been declared as “Tourism Centers.” As a result, travel agencies have been set up to tour tourists and promote the region, and tours called “green tours” have been organized through these agencies. At this stage; establishing national policies and investments for promoting ecotourism is very important, also this can encourage governments to use ecotourism as a tool for poverty alleviation and environmental protection (World Tourism Organization, 2017). However, finding a suitable site for an ES requires a multi-criteria approach and high levels of accuracy and reliability in the resulting maps, to be relevant for decision-making. The effectiveness of the made decision is clearly dependent on the quality of the data used to produce the considered criteria maps, as well as on the method used for decision-making analysis (Jeong et al., 2016; Is
ık and Demir, 2017; Pantoja et al., 2017). Herein, GIS-based MCDA provides a collection of powerful techniques and procedures converting spatial and non-spatial data into information within decision-maker’s own judgments.