National Forest Parks development through Internet technologies for economic perspectives

Abstract

National Forest Parks are protected under national and international environment laws because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. Since they provide economic perspectives through recreational and tourism opportunities for the public, the visitors’ overuse and the supplementary development of facilities and services in these protected areas are the main threats to their ecological integrity. Within the current digital innovations, Internet has become a viable alternative business channel and many firms have already created their internet presence. The aim of the paper is to study the employ of internet technologies in Greek National Forest Parks for economic perspectives and rank the websites, respectively. Internet presence of Greek National Forest Parks is evaluated qualitatively according to their content, used as criteria. Following, the multicriteria method of PROMETHEE II is applied for the total ranking. Furthermore, the optimum National Forest Parks internet presences are identified and described to be used as models with the total exploitation of internet technologies. Finally, necessary recommendations for website optimization are presented.