Determination of the Travel Agencies' Perceptions of Ecotourism Criteria with AHP Method: The Case of Giresun

Abstract

The main purpose of the study is to determine which of the criteria affecting ecotourism are more important in the perceptions of travel agency managers. It is aimed to rank the criteria that affect ecotourism according to their importance and to determine the factors that should be focused on in destinations. Especially in terms of shaping ecotourism activities, which are important in the Eastern Black Sea region, it is aimed that the data obtained from travel agency managers who direct touristic movements will reflect the region's ecotourism demand positively. For this reason, travel agency managers of Giresun province, one of the ecotourism destinations, were taken as the sampling group in the study. The Analytical Hierarchy Process method, one of the multicriteria decision-making methods, was used in the study. In the study results, in the light of the analysis of the data obtained from the travel agency managers, the criteria for ecotourism destinations in Giresun province are listed as security, tourism facilities, natural life, cultural structure, transportation, geographical features, infrastructure, climate and price, respectively. It has been determined that the most important criterion affecting ecotourism destinations is security.