A rough set-based corporate memory for the case of ecotourism

•A RS-based CM is proposed to enhance competitive advantage.•The local village can package tours, guide tourists ecologically.•The development of sustainable ecotourism is achieved in this study.

Corporate memory (CM) is a major asset of any modern organization and provides access to the strategic knowledge and experience making a company more competitive. Until now, CM has not been broadly applied to tourisms, where changes are rapid, both in the nature of eco-tourist behavior and impact on the environment. In order to develop sustainable ecotourism, agile decision-making based on rules induced from data is required. However, ecotourism often provides numerous qualitative data. The qualitative nature of the data makes it difficult to analyze using standard statistical techniques. The rough set approach is suitable for processing qualitative information. In this paper, the proposed CM is incorporated within the rough set in the tourism sector, to provide efficient knowledge management for resolving the problems: (1) to understand the purposes for traveling of tourists and their feedback, and (2) to improve a travel package for attracting valued eco-tourists and reducing environmental damage.