Rational selection of land for leisure

In order for a business project in the leisure sector to have a chance of success, from the beginning and with great care, the promoter must make a series of relevant decisions. The first of the resolutions will serve to clearly define the project and will materialise in the Masterplan and Business Plan. Amongst them, is an equally important decision; the one relative to the location or the choice of the most suitable terrain. The identification and evaluation of its pros and cons, will be fundamental exercises to predict the technical and economic viability of the future business. In order to scientifically and shrewdly select an appropriate terrain for a leisure project, we have developed a mathematical method based on multi-criteria decision systems.

For each of the alternatives offered, a series of main questions must be asked, which we group into three categories: external, internal and legal. Amongst the first, for example, we will consider the following: “Does the land have easy access?” From the second category we will ask ourselves questions of this nature: “Is its shape favourable to accommodate the project?” The third category will raise questions of the following type: “to whom does the site legally belong?” In total, our questionnaire contains 15 important questions that must be answered systematically and that we will adjust to the specific requirements of each country and each project.

The next step will be what we call “Weighting”. The weighting will be done in collaboration with the promoter and will consist of granting a specific weight to each of the question categories. In other words, we will assign percentage values to each of them, according to their importance to the project’s success. Through another series of calculations, we will also obtain a score for every answer of the 15 questions and finally, through the weighting, a specific weight for each of them. Subsequently, we enter this data into a table for cross referencing. The scores for each question will be multiplied by the criteria weight and the products will be added together to reach the total score for each terrain. In this way we will obtain a definitive value assigned to each of them and the promoter will be able to make a decision, based on an objective assessment of the alternatives.