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

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