Zoning Suitable Areas for Conservation and Ecotourism Activities Using Multi Criteria Decision Making Techniques (Case Study: Hamedan Province)

The review and identification of potential sites for ecotourism users is an issue that has been of interest to tourism planners. The purpose of this research was, ranking the protected areas prone to rushes of tourism activities in the province. To investigate the factors associated with locating suitable areas, multiple criteria decision making techniques (SAW, VIKOR, TOPSIS and Entropy) were used. 12 criteria were defined. To obtain virtuous results, five important criteria including vegetation and animal life, infrastructure, willingness of local people, security and access to the area were selected for evaluation. The selection criteria for weighted entropy method and the matrix of paired comparisons were used. The VIKOR method was determined as the best option and SAW and TOPSIS ranking methods were used for the areas. Finally, the ranking of the three techniques were compared. The final ranking of the integration method with arithmetic mean was used. According to the entropy weighting method, vegetation index, and rank 1 and weight of animal LIFE 0.303%, were the most important factors in evaluating suitable areas. Also according to the above methods, Lashgardar Mala yer protected area was best known area for ecotourism activities.