Prioritization of Environmental, Economic, Social and Technical Indicators of Rural Ecotourism Using of Multi-Criteria Decision Making Techniques

Ecotourism is one of the main tools for environmental, economic and social development and it is one of the essential approaches in the process of achieving sustainable development and preventing the waste of time and capital in the world which it always considered from different perspectives. The purpose of this study is to determine and prioritize rural ecotourism criteria and indicators using the opinion of 44 persons of experts and specialist in this field. In this study, Delphi method used to identify environmental, economic, social and technical criteria and indicators in rural ecotourism. Also Entropy and TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making technique have been used to calculate their weight and prioritize, respectively. Analysis of the findings of this study using the Delphi method has identified and customized 54 indicators and 4 criteria from environmental, economic, social and technical aspects for rural ecotourism. The results of weighting the criteria with Entropy technique showed that the environmental, economic, social and technical criteria have allocated weights (0.2501), (0.2726), (0.2496) and (0.2276) respectively. Also, the results of prioritization of criteria with TOPSIS techniques showed that technical and economic criteria have a higher priority compared to other criteria in rural ecotourism. Also the research findings showed that from the environmental, economic, social and technical aspects, indices of green space, forest, pasture and etc..; the prosperity of the rural economy with the development and prosperity of local rural markets; architectural style and handicrafts, type of clothing and food cover and the existence of places and religious historical, ancient, pilgrimage places and attractions compared to other indicators get the first priority. The results of studies show that rural ecotourism due to its special capabilities can attract domestic and foreign tourists and environmental, economic and social development in the future. Therefore, it is suggested that more attention be paid to customized rural ecotourism indicators in this study in management programs and the relevant organization to pay attention to these criteria and selected indicators for the implementation of rural ecotourism projects.