The discussion of tourism development policies considering some quantitative indicators, such as employment multipliers is performed for a World Heritage area that was recently classified in Portugal: the Douro Valley. The need for classified areas to have a sustainable development, mainly in terms of preservation and tourism development is addressed. The discussion over multipliers follows and the achieved results are presented. Lastly, the detection of possible paradoxes on the evolution of the territory culminates this attempt to integrate socio and economic analytical approaches
