Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Analytic network process (ANP)-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) for sustainable tourism planning in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Arabian Journal of Geosciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Sustainable approach to tourism development is rarely addressed among authorities and participants. This research presents an approach based on an integrated use of analytic network process (ANP) and geographic information system (GIS) for sustainable tourism planning in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. ANP was utilized to evaluate the relative priorities for the sustainable tourism development of the highlands based on chosen criteria. ANP results were then transferred into GIS environment and attached to their respective criterion maps. Subsequently, GIS-based sustainable tourism map was generated, which defines the various types of tourism activities that are compatible with the highlands according to the sensitivity of the highland’s environment. The final output was validated using Cameron Highlands Local Plan.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abed MH, Monavari M, Karbasi A, Farshchi P, Abedi Z (2011) Site selection using analytical hierarchy process by geographical information system for sustainable coastal tourism. Paper presented at the Proceedings International Conference Environmental and Agriculture Engineering, Chengdu, China

  • Abomeh OS, Nuga OB (2013) Utilisation of GIS technology for tourism management in Victoria Island Lagos. Eur Sci J, 9(3)

  • Bahaire T, Elliott-White M (1999) The application of geographical information systems (GIS) in sustainable tourism planning: a review. J Sustain Tour 7(2):159–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barzilai J (1998) On the decomposition of value functions. Oper Res Lett 22(4):159–170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Basak I, Saaty T (1993) Group decision making using the analytic hierarchy process. Math Comput Model 17(4):101–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Basith A (2011) Landslide susceptibility modeling under environmental changes: A case study of Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. (PhD), Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia

  • Beedasy J, Whyatt D (1999) Diverting the tourists: a spatial decision support system for tourism planning on a developing island. ITC J 1(3):3–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Belton V, Gear T (1983) On a shortcoming of Saaty’s method of analytic hierarchies. Omega 11:228–230

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berry JK (1991) GIS in island resource planning: a case study in map analysis. In: Maguire D et al (eds) Geographical information systems: volume 2 applications. Longman, Harlow

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanca C, Katy L, Tazim J (2007) A framework for cultural sustainability in protected and natural areas. Paper presented at the George Wright Society Conference, Jamal Texas A&M University

  • Boers B, Cottrell S (2007) Sustainable tourism infrastructure planning: a GIS-supported approach. Tour Geogr 9(1):1–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd SW, Butler RW, Haider W (1995) Identifying criteria and establishing parameters for forest-based ecotourism in Northern Ontario, Canada

  • Bunruamkaew K, Murayam Y (2011) Site suitability evaluation for ecotourism using GIS and AHP: a case study of Surat Thani Province, Thailand. Procedia Soc Behav Sci 21:269–278

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler RW (1993) Tourism—an evolutionary perspective. In: Nelson JG, Butler RW, Wall G (eds) Tourism and sustainable development monitoring, planning, managing. Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, Waterloo

    Google Scholar 

  • Cater E (1993) Ecotourism in the third world: problems for sustainable tourism development. Tour Manag 14(2):85–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen Y, Yu J, Khan S (2010) Spatial sensitivity analysis of multi-criteria weights in GIS-based land suitability evaluation. Environ Model Softw 25(12):1582–1591

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CHLP (2008) Technical report of Cameron Highlands Local Plan (CHLP) 2003-2015

  • DOE (2002) Malaysia Environmental Quality Report: Department of Environment (DOE), Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Malaysia

  • Dye AS, Shaw SL (2007) A GIS-based spatial decision support system for tourists of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. J Retail Consum Serv 14(4):269–278

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eagles PF, McCool SF (2002) Tourism in national parks and protected areas: planning and management. CABI

  • EEA (2000) Europe’s environment: the third assessment. European Environmental Agency, Copenhagen

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisakhani M, Malakahmad A (2009) Water quality assessment of Bertam river and its tributaries in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. World Applied Sciences Journal 7(6):769–776

  • Farrell BH, Runyan D (1991) Ecology and tourism. Ann Tour Res 18(1):26–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fishwick A, Clayson J (1995) Lake District National Park Authority GIS Development Project: Final Report to the Countryside Commission

  • García-Melón M, Gómez-Navarro T, Acuña-Dutra S (2012) A combined ANP-delphi approach to evaluate sustainable tourism. Environ Impact Assess Rev 34:41–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin P, Wright G (1998) Decision analysis for management judgement, second edn. John Wiley, Chichester

    Google Scholar 

  • Harun N, Samat N (2016) GIS based multi-criteria evaluation approach in planning tourism development sites in environmentally sensitive areas. SHS Web of Conferences 23, 02001 (2016)

  • Herath G (2002) Research methodologies for planning ecotourism and nature conservation. Tour Econ 8(1):77–101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kotios A, Plageras P, Galanos G, Koutoulakis M, Saratsis Y (2009) The impact of tourism on water demand and wetlands: searching for a sustainable coexistence: Discussion Paper Series

  • Leung LC, Cao D (2001) On the efficacy of modeling multi-attribute decision problems using AHP and Sinarchy. Eur J Oper Res 132(1):39–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minagawa M, Tanaka N (eds) (1998) Application of geographic information systems to tourism development planning: a case study of Lombok, Indonesia. UNCRD Research report Series No. 27, Nagoya

    Google Scholar 

  • MM2H (2012) Recreation & Entertainment. from http://japanmm2h.com/recreation.html

  • Muganda M, Siriman A, Ezra PM (2013) The role of local communities in tourism development: grassroots perspectives from Tanzania. J Hum Ecol 41(1):53–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Muhanna E (2006) Sustainable tourism development and environmental management for developing countries. Probl Perspect Manag 4(2):14–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy PE (1988) Community driven tourism planning. Tourism Management. June 1988

  • Neaupane KM, Piantanakulchai M (2006) Analytic network process model for landslide hazard zonation. Eng Geol 85(3):281–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nekhay O, Arriaza M, Boerboom L (2009) Evaluation of soil erosion risk using analytic network process and GIS: a case study from Spanish mountain olive plantations. J Environ Manag 90(10):3091–3104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ólafsdóttir R, Runnström M (2007) GIS-based spatial decision support system for tourism. Paper presented at the tourism at borders–16th Nordic symposium in tourism research

  • Othman AG, Mohamed B, Bahauddin A, Som APM, Omar SI (2010) A geographic information system based approach for mapping tourist accommodations in the east coast states of Malaysia. World Appl Sci J 10(Tourism & Hospitality):14–23

    Google Scholar 

  • PahangTourism (2011) Cameron Highlands. from http://www.pahangtourism.com.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=189

  • RSNP (2008) Pahang State Structure Plan (RSNP) 2002–2020. Town and Country Planning Department

  • Saaty TL (1977) A scaling method for priorities in hierarchical structures. J Math Psychol 15(3):234–281

  • Saaty TL (1980) The analytic hierarchy process. John Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Saaty TL (1999) Decision making for leaders: the analytic hierarchy process for decisions in a complex world (Vol. 2). RWS publications

  • Saaty TL (2003) Decision-making with the AHP: why is the principal eigenvector necessary. Eur J Oper Res 145(1):85–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saufi A, O'Brien D, Wilkins H (2014) Inhibitors to host community participation in sustainable tourism development in developing countries. J Sustain Tour 22(5):801–820. doi:10.1080/09669582.2013.861468

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schoner B, Wedley WC, Choo EU (1993) A unified approach to AHP with linking pins. Eur J Oper Res 64(3):384–392

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shah SA, Wani MA (2015) Application of geospatial technology for the promotion of tourist industry in Srinagar City. Int J Serv, Sci Technol 8(1):37–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simmons DG (1994) Community participation in tourism planning. Tour Manag 15(2):98–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sunlu U (2003) Environmental impacts of tourism. Paper presented at the Conference on the Relationships between Global Trades and Local Resources in the Mediterranean Region, Rabat (Morocco), Apr 2002

  • Tegou LI, Polatidis H, Haralambopoulos DA (2010) Environmental management framework for wind farm siting: methodology and case study. J Environ Manag 91(11):2134–2147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomczyk A M (2011) A GIS assessment and modelling of environmental sensitivity of recreational trails: The case of Gorce National Park, Poland. Appl Geogr 31:339–351

  • Tosun C (2006) Expected nature of community participation in tourism development. Tour Manag 27(2006):493–504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tubb KN (2003) An evaluation of the effectiveness of interpretation within Dartmoor National Park in reaching the goals of sustainable tourism development. J Sustain Tour 11(6):476–498

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • USFWS (1996) Significant habitats and habitat complexes of the New York bight watershed. Charlestown, R.I.: United States Fish and Wildlife Service

  • Wang YM, Elhag TMS (2006) An approach to avoiding rank reversal in AHP. Decis Support Syst 42(3):1474–1480

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weisstein EW (2014) “Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test.” From MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource

  • Williams PW, Paul J, Hainsworth D (1996) Keeping track of what really counts: tourism resource inventory systems in British Columbia, Canada. In: Harrison LC, Husbands W (eds) Practising responsible tourism: international case studies in tourism planning, policy & development. J. Wiley & Sons, New York, pp 404–421

    Google Scholar 

  • WTO (2004) Survey of destination management organizations report. World Tourism Organization

  • WWF-Malaysia (2002) Study for the sustainable development of the highlands of peninsular Malaysia

  • Yaakup A, Che-Man N, Hosni N, Haron HW, Sulaiman S (2006) A GIS approach in evaluation of metropolitan green area: a case of Sungai Pulai Wetland

  • Yu R, Tzeng GH (2006) A soft computing method for multi-criteria decision making with dependence and feedback. Appl Math Comput 180(1):63–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Yusryzal W (2008) GIS spatial modeling in planning and resource management in Cameron Highlands. (M.S), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Built Environment

  • Zha L, Wang Y (2010) Research on regional tourism planning spatial decision supporting system. Paper presented at the Natural Computation (ICNC), 2010 Sixth International Conference

  • Zhang Y (2013) Model elicitation in nation-building simulation: analytic network process for ranking decisions and Petri Nets for robust optimization. State University of New York at Buffalo

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Space Research and Development Agency, Obasanjo Space Center, Pyakasa Junction, Airport Road, Abuja, Nigeria

    Mansir Aminu

  2. Civil Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia

    Abdul Nasir Matori, Khamaruzaman Wan Yusof & Amirhossein Malakahmad

  3. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Rosilawati Binti Zainol

Authors
  1. Mansir Aminu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Abdul Nasir Matori
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Khamaruzaman Wan Yusof
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Amirhossein Malakahmad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Rosilawati Binti Zainol
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mansir Aminu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Aminu, M., Matori, A.N., Yusof, K.W. et al. Analytic network process (ANP)-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) for sustainable tourism planning in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. Arab J Geosci 10, 286 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3067-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3067-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation