Sport tourism is a selective form of tourism in which predominate sports related motivations for travelling and staying at a certain touristic destination. It represents an active form of holiday, where the interest is focused on taking part in sport or recreation. There are numerous benefits that sport tourism brings along, either economically, in preserving and protecting the nature, as well as in stimulating local people to work. It has already been proved that sport tourism can help promote a tourist resort through various investments and make the destination well known by creating a positive image through sport and a healthy way of life. Sport tourism offers the possibility to take part in many sports and represents a wide range of different and complex forms of tourism that may take place in different regions. Sport and recreation, as an offer in tourism, represent additional contents, which makes a country more attractive as a tourist destination. Researches of the development of sport tourism show that both positive and negative effects have an impact on the destination, population, and on the whole social and economic process. For a faster development of sport tourism in tourist destinations, it is very important to strengthen the partnership between institutions connected with tourism, as well as associations and communities. Sport tourism in Croatia has good basis for survival and development on the whole territory. Istrian County represents a touristic region suitable for the development of sport and recreational tourism. Thanks to its resources and additional investments, it will be able to raise the existing quality offers, and in this way, satisfy the demands of a tourist. The challenges of developing sport tourism are focused on continuous introduction of innovations, on following global trends and on the differentiation of the touristic offer. Sport tourism can develop in any destination that has basis and characteristics for developing it. The results of the researches show the importance of developing sport tourism, which acts as a generator of development and livelihood of less developed areas.