Application of the analytical hierarchy process and GIS in optimal site selection for coastal tourist towns: A case study of Kaftar lake beach

Coastal tourism has been rapidly growing in recent decades and is, thus, known as the fastest part of the tourism industry. Beach areas, as one of the aspects of ecotourism, have gained great achievements in attracting tourists and are now popular natural tourist resorts. Kaftar lake in Eghlid is one of the beautiful beach tourist attractions that attracts many tourists annually, especially on holidays. It is considered as a potential region for developing beach tourism, but, unfortunately, there are no facilities and services required by tourists. Buildings and other requirements should be placed at a special spot in a tourist complex with maximum efficiency. Since a lot of standards and indexes need to be analyzed to set up a tourist complex, this research aims at choosing the best location for this purpose by using Boolean logic and AHP technique. After using Boolean logic in a GIS environment, three places of Kaftar lake were examined as potential regions where to establish a tourist complex with such standards as domination of the ground, availability of the beach, flatness of the ground, reasonable construction costs, enough sunshine for sunbathing, and acceptability and originality of the ground. Finally, the best place was decided to be on the northern side of the lake.