Comparison of Distance-Based Fuzzy MCDM Techniques to Evaluate Marketing Strategies for Tourism-Pilgrimage Hotels During a Pandemic

In the last two years (2020 and 2021), many businesses, especially in the tourism and pilgrimage sectors, suffered severe recession during the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of many hotels in the world's religious cities has posed a major threat to religious tourism. Meanwhile, Mashhad hotels in Iran, which are demanded by many tourists and pilgrims from neighboring countries of Iran, were the most affected by this pandemic. Therefore, attracting tourists by observing health protocols for prosperity Industry is very important. Given the complexity of the issue, creativity and the use of decision-making techniques to prioritize marketing strategies are particularly important. This study aims to prioritize marketing strategies using the FMCDM techniques and compare their results together for hotels in the world's second-largest religious metropolis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, two approaches were applied using the combination of the FAHP technique with distance-based FMCDM methods. Distance-based techniques including FTOPSIS and FVIKOR were used. Based on the FTOPSIS, a strategy with an emphasis on focused differentiation was selected as the most appropriate marketing strategy. By applying the FVIKOR method, three strategies were selected as the best strategies. Two of these three strategies emphasize focused differentiation and the other emphasizes differentiation.