Title: Internet and agro-tourism sector for regional development in Crete: a multicriteria ranking

Authors: Zacharoula Andreopoulou; Christos Lemonakis; Christiana Koliouska; Constantin Zopounidis

Addresses: Laboratory of Forest Informatics, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Box 247, 54124, Greece ' Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Box 1939, 71004, Greece ' Laboratory of Forest Informatics, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Box 247, 54124, Greece ' Financial Engineering Laboratory, School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece; Audencia Group, School of Management, 8 route de la Jonelière – B.P. 31222, 44312 Nantes Cedex 3, Nantes, France

Abstract: Nowadays, effective use of internet provides an opportunity to identify successful practices and policies for innovative business models in order to promote regional development through agro-tourism. In Crete, agro-tourism entrepreneurs have developed commercial activities in the internet where customers and firms are linked up together in the exchange of agro-tourism services. This paper aims to assess 29 websites of commercial purpose within agro-tourism sector in Crete and rank them according to 13 content, design, navigation and e-commerce adoption criteria. Each criterion presence is studied and then all the websites were ranked according to these criteria using the multicriteria analysis method of PROMETHEE II (preference ranking organisation method for enrichment evaluation). Results confirm that internet adoption in agro-tourism sector in Crete is in satisfactory level. The findings lead to policy implications for agro-tourism firms' entrepreneurs to use internet technologies and social media as a powerful marketing tool.

Keywords: agro-tourism; regional development; internet; website assessment; total ranking; multicriteria analysis; PROMETHEE II; business model: e-commerce.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIDS.2017.084884

International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, 2017 Vol.9 No.2, pp.116 - 127

Received: 08 Nov 2014
Accepted: 26 Jun 2015

Published online: 08 Jul 2017 *

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