Evaluation and Prioritization of Tourism Villages Using Multi Criteria Decision-Making Techniques (Case Study: Karaj)

Determining the tourist destination villages and paying special attention to these villages is one of the policies of the country's tourism authorities. The purpose of this research is to evaluate and prioritize the tourist destination villages of Karaj using multi-criteria decision-making techniques such as TOPSIS, VIKOR, Entropy, SAW, ELECTRE and finalizing the options using the Borda technique. This is an applied research and in terms of the methodology it is descriptive-analytical research. The statistical population of the study consisted of 15 specialist, experts, tourism planners and experts from the cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism department of Alborz province. After determining 12 criteria and 67 sub-criteria for prioritizing 14 tourist destination villages in Karaj, three villages were selected as the first priority of tourism development. The results of the study showed that the villages of Gachsar, Atashgah, and Velayatrood have better conditions for tourism development respectively, and other villages are in the next priorities. The Kalha village is in the last rank (priority 14).