Information about the paper titled "GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION AND ACTIVE METHODOLOGIES AT HIGHER EDUCATION" at IATED Digital Library

One of the tourism industry’s segments with the strongest growth rates today is health tourism. Health tourism includes two subgroups: medical tourism (traveling outside one’s country of residence for the purpose of receiving medical care, such as surgery and health services) and wellness tourism (travel to specific locations for health promotion in a preventive way). The economic strength and sustainable growth of nations can both benefit from health tourism. This study applies a methodology to quantify the potential of Portuguese wellness tourism (thermal spas in Northern Portugal) using a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) tool, namely the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) and geometrical analysis for interactive aid (GAIA), to achieve a robust evaluation and ranking the alternatives. Therefore, in this study, the aim is to rank ten thermal spas in Northern Portugal in terms of fifteen indicators, mostly related to digital services, containing the tourism data obtained between 2020 and 2022. The suggested approach offers trustworthy and reliable outcomes for any qualitative or quantitative criteria to assess thermal spas, which is crucial for consumers, businesses, and even governments. The results showed that PROMETHEE and GAIA can be implemented as an effective method in wellness tourism destinations evaluation.

The supplier selection process is considered one of the most relevant decisions in supply chain management due to its effect on the product quality and on buyer performance. Supplier selection is often unstructured, and is generally based on the lowest-price proposal. However, this type of selection involves a high risk, sometimes resulting in project delays, poor quality of acquired goods, and large financial losses. Price is undoubtedly an important criterion when choosing a supplier; however, other equally important criteria must be considered. Therefore, supplier selection should be formulated as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. This study uses the PROMETHEE-GAIA (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations—Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Assistance) method to classify and select suppliers in an agrifood company. One of the advantages of this method is that it allows decision-makers to set their preferences considering all the relevant criteria simultaneously, and their relative importance. The case study demonstrates that PROMETHEE constitutes a flexible MCDM tool for supplier evaluation and selection, rank the different alternatives, and provide valuable insights. The results show that the supplier selection process has a strong point related to the existence of two groups of suppliers, one focused on economic criteria and other related to the innovative capacity. However, a flaw emerges, as little relevance is associated to the environmental criterion.