Assessment of ecotourism suitability in Qilian mountain National park.

Effective development of ecotourism is a strategy to improve the main functional areas of national parks, including scientific protection and utilization. For best results, suitability of ecotourism activities must be determined but methods and guidelines for suitability studies are lacking. Here, we used the Gansu area of the Qilian Mountain National Park in China as a case study and proposed a model AHP-Promethee-GIS framework based on landscape units for the suitability evaluation of ecotourism activities. The Promethee method was used in the Python software, and the suitability ranking was obtained for eco-tourism activities in 1641 landscape units. The first four levels of suitability ranking of landscape units were visualized with ArcGIS. The analysis showed that the Gansu area of the Qilian Mountain National Park is suitable for cross-country adventure, professional investigation, forest recreation, and other eco-tourism activities. A spatial layout of ecotourism was proposed in the non-core protected areas of the national park, with a goal to balance development of ecotourism and ecological protection, and to realize the unity of the ecological, economic, and social benefits of the Qilian Mountains National Park. By integrating geospatial analytics with multi-criteria decision-making, the approach advances spatially explicit planning tools that reconcile ecological sensitivity, economic viability, and community benefits. This work underscores the potential of landscape-unit-driven strategies to optimize ecotourism layouts, mitigate ecological fragmentation, and foster synergies between biodiversity preservation and human well-being-a universal imperative for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ecologically fragile regions.