Application of network analysis for development and promotion of sustainable tourism in public forests

Abstract

The issue of sustainable tourism within valuable natural areas has been extensively discussed ever since the emergence of sustainable development philosophy in the 1990s. In view of growing public interest in nature recreation and tourism development, the importance of addressing this subject matter has hitherto increased significantly. The main objective of the present paper was to offer a tool for supporting development and promotion of sustainable tourism in Poland's forests managed by the State Forests – National Forest Holding. GIS technology, and specific tools for network analysis were used in the project. During task realization, only free and open software sources were used. The work was performed based on the example of the Forest District Żołędowo (Regional Directorate of State Forests in Toruń, Poland) with the use of District's spatial data resources. A web application was created to present information about tourist attractions and infrastructure on an interactive map with tools for route planning. As a result, there has been developed the web mapping application which provides general access to tourism related information and enables planning touristic routes by pre-specified criteria. Implemented routing algorithms can help traffic management and further protection of the areas vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures. The system created not only promotes attractive tourist sites but also, supports targeting tourist traffic, and accordingly – adds to the progress of sustainable tourism.