Weighing and realizing the environmental, economic and social goals of tourism development using an analytic network process-goal programming approach

• Sustainable tourism implementation in newly-emerging tourism destinations is problematic.
• The priority of economy, society and environment is different at different development stages in tourism destinations.
• The approach combining the Delphi method, analytic network process and goal programming is developed.
• The findings help to decision-making in Xizang's destination management during the ‘13th Five-year Plan’ period.

Although the sustainable development philosophy has been widely recognized, it is still necessary to weigh the economic, environmental and social implications of tourism development. The decision is often difficult involving typically complex multi-criteria decision making problems. This study aims to contribute a theoretical framework and approach for the determination of top priorities in tourism development and making decisions based upon that approach. Taking Xizang as a case, this study explores the means to weigh and realize tourism development goals during the ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ period, using the analytic network process within a goal programming model. Results show that there are 10 criteria and nine decision variables determined in Xizang's sustainable tourism development and the priorities in Xizang's tourism development should be: 1) economic goals, 2) social goals, and 3) environmental goals. In addition, using the analytic network process-goal programming model, this paper provides the solution of the decision problem for two years, namely 2016 and 2020, and discusses the significance of the results. This study concludes that in a newly-emerging tourism but otherwise economically and socially backward region like Xizang, considering the economy first and the environment last is both appropriate and practicable. It is suggested that Xizang's tourism managers should implement specific strategies to raise the GDP, encourage higher levels of consumption by tourists and appropriately restrict the growth in the number of tourist coming to the area. Other goals should be to improve tourism research and the treatment of tourism employees and provide more support for tourism enterprises. The interdisciplinary approach from a systems perspective used in this study can be used to judge, queen and select numerous goals and criteria to make decisions in sustainable tourism development.