Prioritizing safety-related evaluation criteria for digital mapping technologies in high-altitude trekking using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Digital mapping technologies are increasingly used to support navigation and safety in high-altitude trekking, where environmental uncertainty, limited infrastructure, and physical strain elevate risk. Despite their growing relevance in adventure tourism, existing research offers limited guidance on how safety-related attributes of these technologies should be prioritized under such conditions. This study develops a theory-informed framework to prioritize safety-related evaluation criteria for digital mapping technologies used in high-altitude trekking. Using a criteria-only Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), structured pairwise-comparison judgments were collected from 25 experienced trekkers along the Everest Base Camp and Annapurna Circuit routes in Nepal. Nine evaluation criteria were organized into three clusters: functional performance, interface usability and adoption, and safety and trust. The results indicate that safety- and reliability-oriented criteria receive the highest relative importance. Emergency alert and rescue features, offline functionality, and perceived reliability consistently emerge as the most critical attributes. Functional performance criteria are prioritized over interface usability and adoption factors, whereas sensitivity analysis indicates that the identity of the top-ranked criteria remains stable under moderate variations in cluster-level weights. By focusing on criteria prioritization rather than tool comparison, the study contributes a structured decision-support framework that operationalizes safety-oriented evaluation around emergency readiness, offline operability, reliability, redundancy, and risk-informed usability, with practical relevance for evaluating and designing digital technologies in safety-sensitive adventure tourism contexts.