Geographic information system and Remote sensing as Decision support tool for Potential Ecotourism Site Selection in Masha District, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the tourism industry now adays. It is also a distinctive kind of the tourism that focuses to maintain unique natural and cultural resources, generate income for local communities and serves as an educational research center. Like other developing countries, Ethiopia is not effectively using its rich and endemic wildlife species for ecotourism due to various physical and socioeconomic factors. Masha district has also abundant and valuable natural and cultural resources that can be developed into ecotourism, but the district was not used its attractive resources for ecotourism. The current study was initiated to select potential sites for ecotourism using GIS and RS as a decision support tool in Masha district, southwest Ethiopia. To identify a suitable site for ecotourism, this study employed GIS based Multi-Criteria Evaluation method because it was a commonly used technique in suitable site selection. To achieve the objective of this study, about seven physical and socioeconomic parameters were selected through literature review. Then weights for each factor were assigned based on Analytical Hierarchy Process using pairwise comparison matrices. After assigning weights, all evaluation criteria were integrated in a GIS software to map out potential ecotourism suitable site. Based on the overlay result a thematic map of potential ecotourism sites was produced. The final results reveal that, about 21.2% of the study area was classified as highly suitable potential ecotourism sites (S1) whereas about 59% and 19.5% of the district were under moderately (S2) and marginally suitable (S3) classes. But, only the small portion of the district (0.4%) was considered as not currently suitable site (N) for ecotourism. These largest parts of the highly suitable potential ecotourism sites were lies in the central, northern, northwestern, southern and southwestern part of the district. Therefore, decision makers should give a due attention to advertise the selected suitable site for both local and foreign tourists in order to develop the district as one of ecotourism destination areas in the country.