Geomarketing and Geographic Information Systems for urban decisions: indication of the best location for a convention center in Belo Horizonte - MG

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The main objective of this article is to illustrate how geomarketing and geographic information system (GIS) can assist the process of decisions making in urban planning, specifically in the identification and characterization of the best places for the construction of a convention center in Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. A convention center is a typically large building, essential for a metropolis, designed to hold business and tourism conventions and events.

Establishing the best locations for a convention center involves research of which variables should compose the analysis and how to cross them. For this purpose, the work was based on the method of multicriteria analysis, which evaluates various criteria and processes contributing for the result, trying to cover all the factors that influence the choice of the local of the convention center.

This is a macro view of analysis, which examines the city as a whole. The work of selection for the best location can be divided into four steps: 1) identification of places with highest number of weighted desirable characteristics, 2) selection of vacant lots with an area over 10.000m2, 3) exclusion of lots from areas with characteristics identified as unfavorable, and 4) application of calculus of Accessibility.

At first, it was identified locations which had the highest amount of desirable characteristics crossing maps from the software SAGA with the calculus of weighted average, using variables defined by Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), and weights and notes defined by the Delphi method. After identifying those areas, it was searched for areas which had vacant lots measuring over 10.000m2.

Thus, as a result of this article, it was found in Belo Horizonte 11 ideal places to build a convention center, instead of only one location. A convention center can be built in any of these locations, according to the selected criteria, although some places are more accessible or more suitable for the activity. Therefore, this article presents not only a single place, but a list of suggestions. The choice of one location between the options presented, however, requires a micro analysis of each of them, since this article diagnosis was macro, which contemplated the entire city of Belo Horizonte.