Construction and Use of a ‘Green Growth’ Tourism Decision Support System: A Multi-Model Approach

Abstract

For design, development, implementation and use of an information system (IS) to constitute a valid research activity, the system should support the solution of a non-trivial and important problem and it should be original, drawing on existing theories and knowledge. The design of one such system is described in this paper: specifically, a decision support system (DSS) designed to support the development of ‘Green Growth’ (GG) strategies for Travelism (Travel & Tourism) destinations. A sound GG strategy is important: first, because tourism is a major contributor to the global economy - particularly for developing and island states; second because it represents some 5% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and these are increasing faster than the global norm; and third because the environment is an essential element of destination attractiveness. Thus, the problem domain is certainly non-trivial and important. It is further argued that the design of the DSS artefact described is original and novel in the sense that: i) it supports the entire GG strategy development process (which is actually cyclical); ii) it allows for the sharing of data, functionality and knowledge between different DSS applications and different strategy development exercises in a seamless, integrated manner; and iii) it will be deployed in a global community based program in 2016. System design draws heavily on previous IS, information management and software engineering research; particularly with regard to use of abstraction and interfaces in support of component sharing and reuse.