Sustainable Tourism Development Using Multi‐Criteria Decision Making in China Tourism Destination

ABSTRACT This study identifies and prioritizes essential criteria for sustainable tourism in China using a two‐phased Multi‐Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) framework that integrates the Delphi technique with the Best‐Worst Method (BWM). Eco‐tourism is recognized as a vital pathway to balance tourism demand with sustainability and economic growth. Despite extensive literature, significant gaps remain in systematically prioritizing sustainability factors within specific national contexts. We hypothesize that structured expert‐based evaluation can effectively identify and rank the most influential factors to guide policy and planning. To test this, 41 experts participated in the Delphi phase and 9 experts in the BWM prioritization process, enabling a rigorous evaluation of environmental, social, and economic dimensions. The findings highlight biodiversity protection, cultural asset preservation, and equitable economic distribution as critical concerns. The BWM analysis demonstrated strong consistency in pairwise comparisons, reinforcing the robustness of the results. Practical recommendations are offered to help policymakers optimize tourism revenues while mitigating ecological and cultural impacts. Future research should extend this framework to other contexts and incorporate emerging drivers such as technological innovation and climate‐related uncertainty. Overall, the study demonstrates that combining expert consensus with robust prioritization methods provides a replicable model for advancing sustainable tourism governance in China and beyond.