The evaluation of tourism destination competitiveness by TOPSIS & information entropy – A case in the Yangtze River Delta of China

Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was proposed by Hwang and Yoon as a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) method, which identifies solutions from a finite set of alternatives. TOPSIS is based on the concept that the chosen alternative should have the shortest distance from the positive ideal solution (PIS) and the farthest distance from the negative ideal solution (NIS). In this study, the method was applied to evaluate the tourism destination competitiveness (TDC) of the Yangtze River Delta in China. This empirical study was based on a two-step procedure. The first procedure consisted of three hierarchies, four aspects and 35 evaluation indices, which were weighted by the information entropy weight (IEW). Secondly, the TOPSIS method was applied to the ranking analysis. This gave the most important index for each aspect by IEW. It also provided the ranking for 16 cities in the Yangtze River Delta based on four aspects, as well as the final overall ranking among them. Finally, the tactics and means for the cities to improve their tourism competitiveness were discussed. The results showed that TOPSIS & IEW can be implemented as an effective method in TDC evaluation.