Multi-criteria GIS-based procedure for coffee shop location decision

Abstract: The location selection of a coffee shop is crucial for its success or failure. It should be decided in a strategical and comprehensive way. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has rapidly become a popular tool for complicated location decision problems, because of its remarkable function for handling spatial and non-spatial data. In this particular project, based on GIS softwares, a spatial interaction model, the Huff model, and a decision making model, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria model, were used to determine the most promising area for opening a new coffee shop in San Francisco, United States. By using two GIS softwares, ArcMap and ERDAS, to analyze different kinds of criteria, which can be classified as socioeconomic and demographic, three customized optimizing location maps, the optimized location for Huff capture, the optimized location for AHP-based multi-criteria model and the optimized location map for both Huff and AHP, were obtained. When these three maps were compared with the actual situation, the commercial district and the area that was surrounded by a university and parks were evaluated as the most suitable location for establishing a new coffee shop in San Francisco. The result shows that visitor flow rate was a primary factor that influences the operation of coffee shops.