Transformations  in
Business & Economics

APPLICATION OF MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUES IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Abbas Mardani, Ahmad Jusoh, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Mansooreh Kazemilari, Ungku Norulkamar Ungku Ahmad, Zainab Khalifah

ABSTRACT. In recent years, several multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques and approaches have been proposed to help experts in the tourism and hospitality industry for making the best choices. The main purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of MCDM techniques and applications in tourism and hospitality. This study reviewed in total 106 papers published from 1994 to 2014 in 53 peer reviewed journals; these papers were extracted from online databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science. Papers were classified into six main application areas: (1) service quality, (2) tourism destination, (3) ecotourism, (4) marketing, (5) location selection and (6) other areas. Furthermore, the papers were categorized based on the authors' nationality, date of publication, techniques and approaches, summary of selected papers and the title of the journal. At the end of the paper, a discussion is provided based on the research questions and objectives  .

KEYWORDS: decision making (DM), hospitality, hotel, fuzzy sets, literature review, multiple criteria decision-making techniques (MCDM), tourism.

JEL classification: M14, M19, P2.