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RESEARCH ARTICLE

A picture fuzzy sets-based decision support model for the holistic assessment of cruise port tourism performance

Galip Cihan Yalçın1† ,  Karahan Kara1,2,3 ,  Vladimir Simic4* ,  Pınar Gürol5 ,  Emre Çakmak6 ,  Dragan Pamucar7,8,9∗
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1 Department of Business, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, OSTIM Technical University, Ankara, Türkiye
2 Department of Data Science and Analytics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Izmir Katip Çelebi University, Izmir, Türkiye
3 Department of Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, SIMATS, Chennai, India
4 Széchenyi István University, Egyetem tér 1, 9026 Győr, Hungary
5 Department of Logistics Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Piri Reis University, Istanbul, Türkiye
6 Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, İstinye University, Istanbul, Türkiye
7 Department of Applied Mathematical Science, College of Science and Technology, Korea University, Sejong, Republic of Korea
8 Applied Artificial Intelligence Research Center, Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC), Baku, Azerbaijan
9 Faculty of Engineering, Doğuş University, Ümraniye, Istanbul, Türkiye
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
IJOCTA, 025430183 https://doi.org/10.36922/IJOCTA025430183
Received: 26 October 2025 | Revised: 21 December 2025 | Accepted: 29 December 2025 | Published online: 25 March 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Sustainable tourism performance of cruise ports is a critical determinant of the long-term competitiveness of both ports and destination regions. This study aims to develop and apply a novel picture fuzzy sets (PFSs)-based decision-support system to systematically evaluate cruise ports’ sustainable tourism performance by integrating qualitative expert judgments with quantitative operational data. The proposed framework adopts a multi-attribute group decision-making structure, in which PFSs are employed to explicitly capture uncertainty, hesitation, and neutrality in expert evaluations. Criteria weights are determined using an extended PFS-based weights by envelope and slope (WENSLO) method, while cruise port rankings are obtained through a PFS-integrated multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) approach. The applicability of the proposed PFS–WENSLO–MABAC hybrid model is demonstrated through a case study of major cruise ports in Türkiye. The results indicate that the number of cruise passengers (0.5601) and the number of cruise ships (0.4218) are the most influential determinants of sustainable tourism performance, with Kuşadası Cruise Port (0.9029) achieving the highest overall ranking. Sensitivity and robustness analyses confirm the stability of the ranking outcomes under varying weighting scenarios. The findings provide actionable insights for port authorities and policymakers by identifying priority performance dimensions and offering a reliable analytical tool to support strategic planning and sustainability-oriented decision-making in cruise tourism.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Cruise ports
Multi-attributive border approximation area comparison
Picture fuzzy sets
Sustainability performance
Weights by envelope and slope
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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