DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR SELECTING TOURIST ATTRACTIONS OF TRADITIONAL HOUSE AND CULTURE IN SOUTHWEST SUMBA REGENCY USING TOPSIS

Southwest Sumba Regency (SBD) in East Nusa Tenggara has unique cultural tourism potential, including the traditional houses of the Sumba tribe, which are still preserved. These houses reflect the cultural and spiritual values of the local community through their architecture and traditional building materials such as bamboo, wood, and thatch. In addition to traditional houses, Sumba’s culture is rich in traditional rituals, ikat weaving arts, and megalithic tombstones. However, the lack of information regarding the locations of these tourist attractions poses a challenge for tourists who wish to explore SBD. Many tourists struggle to find lesser-known tourist spots due to the limited real-time information and promotional media. Therefore, a decision support system (DSS) based on the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is proposed to assist tourists in selecting travel destinations in SBD. TOPSIS is considered effective because it ranks alternatives based on the shortest distance from the ideal positive solution and the longest distance from the ideal negative solution. This system allows tourists to receive recommendations for travel destinations by considering various criteria, such as distance, cost, facilities, and transportation. This research demonstrates that the TOPSIS method successfully provides the best recommendations from 14 tourist locations in SBD, with the Pasola Festival and Watu Malandong being the top choices with a score of 0.6958, followed by the Sumba Cultural House with a score of 0.6561. The DSS based on TOPSIS helps accelerate the process of searching for and selecting travel destinations according to tourists' needs, facilitates the promotion of lesser-known tourist spots, and supports the local government in promoting tourism in SBD. Thus, this system is expected to provide a practical solution for tourists in discovering tourist attractions in SBD.