A Novel Approach to Service Design within the Tourism Industry: Creating a Travel Package with AHP-TRIZ Integration

Abstract

Creating a suitable travel package has become increasingly difficult for businesses within the tourism industry because of various factors affecting tourists’ decision-making behavior and businesses’ desire to make profits. This paper proposes a novel approach to service design within the tourism industry by integrating the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) to design a suitable travel package while taking into account both consumer and business perspectives. Through a case study application, we identify the most important consumer and business factors with AHP and the Delphi method and then solve the existing contradiction with TRIZ. We collect both qualitative and quantitative data from experts and visitors through a survey approach consisting of 56 fully completed responses for a target of only 35 responses as required by AHP. We analyze these data using Super Decisions software to obtain the necessary results. AHP helps weigh and rank the 4 criteria and 16 sub-criteria, whereas TRIZ provides recommendations to resolve the contradiction, based on the 40 inventive principles, to create a cost-effective travel package to Belize in Central America. The main contradiction was feasibility versus cost, and the most applicable corresponding principles were dynamization, self-service, local quality, and prior action. Overall, this paper gives vital insights into the tourism sector to anyone interested in this topic and provides a precise AHP-TRIZ application framework with clear procedures. The results and methodologies could also help scholars and academics with future AHP-TRIZ applications in other research fields or possible expansions of this new approach.