SUMMARY
Mexico is among the nations with the highest tourist reception, however, the conditions associated with its development are not captured by institutional figures. It is therefore necessary to generate alternative indicators to visualize, from another perspective, their impacts. This paper analyzes the socioeconomic and tourist behavior of four municipalities with sun and beach destinations in the Northwest Region of Mexico: Los Cabos, Mazatlan, Puerto Peñasco and Ensenada; with the aim of detecting differences and similarities during the period between 2000 and 2015; as well as complementing the information with alternative indicators proposed here. For this purpose, quantitative techniques such as grouping of time series and estimation of growth rates were used, in addition to the graphic method and an exhaustive review of the literature. The results revealed that, although Ensenada had the highest number and growth rate of lodging establishments, in 2015 it presented the least number of rooms and units of lodging, of tourists, occupation and average stay; while Los Cabos maintained the highest amount and rate of growth of rooms, tourists, stay and average occupancy. Regarding demographic and socioeconomic variables, the latter municipality showed the highest growth rate and population density, the highest HDI and the highest level of remuneration. Mazatlan was at the lowest level of marginalization and poverty, in addition to having the highest level of schooling. This reveals that in the long run, not necessarily the higher remuneration, infrastructure, stay and occupation will have the lowest levels of marginalization or poverty. In relation to the proposed indicators, it was corroborated that tourism development generates important pressures on the environment, either due to the increase in the demand for resources, the modification of land use, or the presence of massive flows of people. This situation was more worrisome in the municipalities of Los Cabos, Mazatlán and Puerto Peñasco, where in some cases the tourists and their annual nights reached quintuple the total of its inhabitants, exerting a temporary increase in the population density. Based on the above, it was concluded that the development of tourism and its indicators attend to factors and events of different nature, which are not necessarily generalizable for all municipalities studied here. In this sense, agents involved in tourism policy should consider such disparities when designing measures that allow enhancing their positive impacts, reducing their negative effects and establishing limits to their growth.