Optimizing Tourist Destination Selection Using AHP and Fuzzy AHP Based on Individual Preferences for Personalized Tourism

Tourism is a dynamic industry that significantly contributes to the global economy, driven by the increasingly diverse preferences of tourists. Addressing these preferences requires sophisticated decision-making models capable of handling the uncertainty and subjectivity of human judgments. This study proposes sustainable models for effectively capturing and evaluating individual tourist preferences using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP). These models leverage the strengths of the AHP to construct a flexible decision-making framework that adapts to diverse tourist preferences, offering personalized recommendations. In this study, three main criteria are considered: types of tourism, tourism facilities, and tourism areas. Tourists are encouraged to provide their preferences for these criteria and sub-criteria, enabling the AHP and Fuzzy AHP to recommend suitable destinations. An analysis was conducted with 30 respondents providing pairwise comparisons of the tourism criteria, which were then used to generate tourist attraction recommendations using both the AHP and Fuzzy AHP. The study assessed respondents’ satisfaction with the recommendations, finding that both methods were effective, with a slight preference for the Fuzzy AHP due to its ability to better capture individual preferences. The results underscore the potential of these models in sustainably enhancing decision support systems in the tourism industry, offering tailored recommendations that align more closely with tourist expectations.