Evaluating Nature Tourism Destination Potentiality in Samosir Regency using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Samosir regency is one of the national tourism destinations that has many tourist attractions for both domestic and foreign tourists. The management of sustainable tourism destination requires inventory of tourism assets. Inventory of tourism assets can be determined through natural resources condition in tourism area. Land cover monitoring become useful information to determine natural resources condition in tourism area. Remote sensing technology can be used to monitor land cover changes quickly, accurately and effectively. This research uses a method of digital land cover classification with object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach, because this method effectively used in high resolution image with true colour (RGB). The overall accuracy value obtained from land cover classification using the OBIA approach is 75,4 %. This study aims to analyze the potential of tourist attractions using land cover data as the determinants of physical characteristics besides tourist attractions in addition to attractions accessibility and facilities. Determination of tourism potential is obtained by looking at the relationship between the tourism site physical characteristics with the attraction of a tourist object then categorized using the scoring method. the result of multiple regression analysis obtained by correlation coefficient is R = 0,832, which means there is relationship between facility variable, land cover, and accessibility to the number of visitors in Samosir regency. Tourist attraction potential of Samosir regency is divided into three that is high, middle and low potential tourist attraction. The level of potential tourism object categories is expected to be used in the development of tourism planning in Samosir District to become a sustainable tourism destination.