Innovative Approaches Sensitive to Nature and the Environment in the Certification of Accommodation Facilities: MCDM Research

Abstract

Purpose – Accommodation facilities play a major role in the evaluation of tourism capacities of countries. In order to move the competition conditions forward, accommodation facilities are classified according to the types of certification of their environmental innovative approaches in the context of sustainability. In the context of innovation in accommodation, the aim of the study is to rank and compare tourism certified accommodation services according to provinces in four main categories as Business Certified, Investment Certified, Simple Accommodation Business Certified and Environmentally Friendly Certified and three sub-categories based on the number of facilities, rooms and beds of each category. Design/Mothodology/Approach – Among the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods, MEREC, CoCoSo, MAIRCA, EDAS, and the Borda Ranking method were used. Within the scope of the research, the capacity performance of 34 cities in Turkey that obtained an environmental certificate in the accommodation sector in 2024 was evaluated based on 12 criteria, including 4 main and 3 sub-criteria. The evaluation was conducted considering a literature review and expert opinions. Findings – After determining the criteria weights using the MEREC method, the CoCoSo, MAIRCA, EDAS, and Borda Ranking methods were applied. In terms of weighting, the number of beds in environmentally certified facilities, the number of operation-certified facilities, and the number of beds in investment-certified facilities emerged as the most significant factors. The cities with the highest capacity performance evaluations were, in order, Antalya, İstanbul, Muğla, İzmir, and Balıkesir. Discussion – In terms of tourism and accommodation preferences, it is observed that environmentally certified accommodation facilities, which represent an innovative approach, are preferred and have a significant advantage in capacity performance compared to other cities. Considering this, it can be suggested that other cities could become more preferred if they complete the necessary certifications.