A Fuzzy AHP-MAIRCA Model for Overtourism Assessment: The Case of Malaga Province

Josefa García Mestanza and Rim Bakhat
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Josefa García Mestanza: The University Institute of Tourism Intelligence Research of the University of Malaga (i3t), 29016 Málaga, Spain
Rim Bakhat: Management Logistics and Applied Management Department, School of Economics Sciences, University of Abdel Malek Essaidi, Tangier 1373, Morocco

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-32

Abstract: The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 has placed the tourism sector in an unfavourable position. It has altered the reality of destinations worldwide, changing the paradigm of tourism and showing an unusual scenario within the tourism sector, the undertourism. This paper confirms how this global pandemic has put the Spanish tourism sector at a halt, making it essential to establish public–private response strategies that reactivate it and, in turn, avoid overtourism in the post-COVID-19 scenario. This is done to emphasise the necessity of embracing an adapted systematic approach that entails a realistic set of factors to quantitatively measure the impact of overtourism on the local community. In this sense, a fuzzy modified hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is proposed, combining the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) model, the multi-attribute ideal–real comparative analysis (MAIRCA) model, and the sensitivity analysis. The modified F-AHP model is used to identify the criteria importance. For the final ranking of the considered alternative municipalities, the modified F-MAIRCA is applied. To validate the applicability of the proposed approach, we designated the province of Malaga (Costa del Sol) as an empirical study. The findings show that the municipality of Nerja was the most affected by overtourism in the pre-pandemic scenario, and today it is found in undertourism. This calls for transformative decisions of fully engaged tourism policymakers and practitioners to thrive in the post-COVID-19 tourism scenarios in terms of sustainability.

Keywords: overtourism; undertourism; Covid-19; sustainability; F-AHP; F-MAIRCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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