and do not venture to the equally attractive but lesser
known areas. The 308 sq km GSMNP has something to
offer everyone who comes to the park and having a
memorable trip to the park is a matter of matching the
wishes of the visitors to the resources within the park.
The spatial aspect in a problem of this nature lends itself
well to applications of geographic information systems
(GIS) and spatial decision support systems (SDSS). This
paper presents a GIS-based SDSS application that assists
the park visitors in discovering various hidden treasures in
GSMNP and matches their personal interests to the
abundant resources available in the park. Such a GISbased
SDSS will not only offer park visitors with a useful
tool to facilitate their activity planning but also increase
their satisfaction from the matched personal interests and
park resources.
The remaining sections of this paper are organized as
follows. Section 2 presents the background information of
GSMNP, GIS, and SDSS. Section 3 describes a GIS-based
spatial decision system designed to assist the visitors of
GSMNP in discovering and planning potential activities
in the park. An example is included to illustrate how the