Fifth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

The Mediterranean, particularly its beaches, is the most important tourist destination worldwide. Despite the attractive beach and weather conditions, natural events, such as red tide or sea conditions, could avoid the development of tourist activities, and represent a risk for visitors and local habitants. Due to this, safety is one of the most important factors taken into account for tourists at the moment of planning their vacations. At present, there are no metrics to define if the coastal conditions are secure for the practice of tourism activities. The only existent evaluations are limited to tide monitoring by flag color coding. In this work, a computational model based on the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process is proposed to evaluate main coastal and weather characteristics, and their relative importance for beach safety. Wind, tide, temperature, and bathymetry were defined as the most significant parameters to evaluate safety. The Importance weights define the impact of each parameter, generating a score concerning the bad or good safety in the evaluated place, involving the complete parameter assessments. If beach safety conditions are optimal, the index has a score of “1;” otherwise, when one or more parameters present non optimal values, the final score decreases, being “0” in the worst case. The selected parameters of some Mediterranean beaches are obtained, and each place is evaluated utilizing the proposed model. The beach safety assessment provides information for the tourist to select the best destination for their vacation, and could be used as a tool to motivate tourism.