Evaluation of the Disaster Tourism Potential of Countries

Abstract

Disasters are tragic events that cause losses. The curiosity of people to feel sadness and pain motivates disaster tourism. Each disaster region has the potential for disaster tourism, which offers various benefits. This chapter covers the evaluation of the disaster tourism potential of countries with the fuzzy-TOPSIS method. The criteria affecting the disaster tourism potential as the number of dead, injured, affected, and homeless people were weighted according to the evaluations of the decision-makers. Disasters that occurred worldwide between 1980-2022 were analyzed with the criteria weights based on the countries where they occurred. Decision-makers mostly evaluated the number of deaths and homeless as more effective in affecting the desire to visit a disaster area and the attractiveness of the region. Among 90 countries, it has been determined that Sri Lanka and the Russian Federation are the two countries with the highest disaster tourism potential as to the number of losses/disasters, while Ethiopia is the country with the lowest disaster tourism potential.