An operational method to supporting siting decisions for sustainable rural second home planning in ecotourism sites

Due to inadequate environmental assessments, many sustainable tourism destinations have not contributed to both conservation and development as expected. This paper describes an operational spatial planning method to evaluate the suitability of an ecotourism site. As using the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) based on the understanding of all possible aspects and implications of the existing regional planning, this work presents a process to siting second home countryside in the study area, La Vera County, Spain. Accordingly, this study explores the criteria using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) with the primary screening and supporting opportunities of environmental conservation and economic growth as well. To reach a consensus criteria weight, a field survey to local residents and group discussion with a panel of experts were conducted for an analytical procedure, making them more objective. Then, it evaluated the suitability of the study area in order to optimally site a rural second home based on the previous constraints and criteria with the aid of the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator weighing functions with constant value of orness and maximum entropy. The assessment results provide a new empirical approach and valuable management tool to evaluate the existing infrastructure and environment and to predict their future improvements that can be reapplied to other destinations. These strongly emphasize benefits to the local community and effective ecotourism with its integration. Particularly, this model analysis proposes a method to demonstrate the participatory attitude of local residents in the sustainable planning assessment.