Synthetic indicators and sustainable coastal tourism in Murcia, Spain

This paper proposes the use of synthetic indicators to measure the sustainability of tourist activity in the coastal tourist areas of the Region of Murcia, providing a comparative analysis. Based on indicators proposed by the World Tourism Organization, and using hypothetical targets provided by users, the results obtained have the advantage of being easily interpretable by policy-makers, showing the strengths and weaknesses of the coastal areas of the Region of Murcia with regards to tourist activity, related to sustainability in general, and to its different dimensions in particular, which makes it possible for policy-makers to focus on those aspects which require special attention. As far as we know, this is the first study quantifying sustainable tourist activity in the region.