Abstract
Most ecotourism studies focused on the construction of indicators. However, only a few studies tried to explore site selection model of eco-tourism development and they only focus on developing the indicators of the site selection, and lack of spatial application and analysis. As a result, these site selections couldn’t be accurately implemented into special dimensions. This study has selected New Taipei City in Taiwan as the empirical study area, and with the combination of AHP method and GIS software to build one site selection model for potential ecotourism development area. First of all, related factors of natural and cultural resources were selected through literature review; then factor weights were collected by questionnaires from expert's evaluation. Finally, all the evaluation factors were integrated in GIS system to map out potential ecotourism development areas. Results showed there were three areas of potential ecotourism development areas in New Taipei City, which are the ecotone between Tamshui and Bali district, Yehliu area in Wanli district and the Coast in Yanliao. The results of this site selection model can be a reference to the ecotourism development and planning for government and recreational agencies.