Abstract

Recreational areas are economically beneficial and can directly assist both local communities and nations in achieving sustainable environmental development. This study combines analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) method to construct a quantifiable SWOT model to assess strategy formulation for nine recreational areas in central Taiwan. The fuzzy Delphi method determined the assessment criteria indicators, while the relative weights of these criteria were examined by the AHP. An expert questionnaire including these criteria was designed to assess the performance of the recreational areas. In the SWOT model, the relative performance among different recreational areas was parameterized specifically. The analytical results provide valuable quantitative data for developing and implementing current enterprises strategy. The focus of this work is on providing useful quantitative information, to assess the competitiveness different recreational areas, for developing and implementing strategy.

Key words: Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), fuzzy Delphi method, recreational area, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), Taiwan.