GIS applications as a tool for tourism planning and education: A case study of Chalkidiki

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are now recognized widely as a valuable tool for managing, decision making, analyzing, and displaying large volumes of diverse data pertinent to many local and regional planning activities. However, the number of GIS applications for regional tourism planning and education has not mushroomed as in other fields. This is also reflected in the field of sustainable tourism where the adoption of new technologies has been rather slow. Nonetheless, sustainable tourism decision-making and carrying capacity estimation has a lot to benefit from using such technologies. IS can be used for managing various information needs, estimating indicators and, generally, assisting decision making in the planning phase, as well as in the monitoring and evaluation phases. In the field of tourism education GIS is just starting to become known as a valuable analytical tool by tourism/ hospitality firms and as a tourism economic development tool. However, college graduates with both tourism and GIS skills are virtually non-existent. The case of the Prefecture of Chalkidiki, Greece demonstrates the necessity and the value of such technologies