Geospatial Approach for Ecotourism Development: A Case of Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Naturebased tourism is increasing throughout the world. Ecotourism has
attracted increasing attention in recent years, not only as an alternative to mass
tourism, but also as a means of economic development and environmental
conservation. Being a naturebased tourism it takes into account the natural
ecological attraction, their conservation and development. Most is based in
national parks and restricted areas. The need for a sustainable approach in
tourism development is very often addressed among the academia, the
authorities and the stakeholders, as well as the apparent need for tools, which
will guide in evaluation and planning. This study apply Geographical Information
System (GIS) in multi-criterion decision-making framework in solving a spatial
multi-objective problem of selecting suitable site for lodge establishing and map
the scenic potential for ecotourism development and produce land use land cover
map for BMNP ETM+ image has been used. Accordingly six land use land cover
types were obtained: grassland, forest, erica, woodland, bareland and alpine.
Seven criteria were defined to evaluate suitable sites for lodge: these are land use
land cover; proximity to river, settlement and wilderness camp sites; geological,
elevation (altitude) and slope suitability. To map the scenic potential map, four
criteria were used from the previous seven factors: river availability, land use
land cover, elevation and slope scenic. These criteria were ranked using the
pairwise comparison technique of multi criteria analysis (MCA) and the results
integrated into GIS weighted in hierarchical order using the MCE approach and
produce lodge suitability and scenic potential maps. This study represents an
important contribution to effective decision-making and environmental friendly
infrastructure planning for ecotourism tourism development. Geospatial
approach is necessary and effective for ecotourism components.
Key words: Criteria (factor), Ecotourism, GIS, Multi-criteria evaluation,
Suitability
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Keywords
Criteria (factor), Ecotourism, GIS, Multi-criteria evaluation, Suitability