Global trends imply on the growing interest in culture as the travel motivation. Cultural tourism can be active throughout the whole year and it is not related to weather conditions. Croatia is rich with cultural and historical potentials, which opens the opportunities to supplement the tourist supply and develop cultural tourism, but this must be implemented in accordance with the preservation of the resources and maintaining the uniqueness of the tourist destinations. The aim of this thesis is to summarise the theory on sustainable cultural tourism, to analyse the impacts and the role of cultural tourism in urban development. After defining the main characteristics of the cultural tourism, in this work are presented the impacts, specificities in managing cultural tourism development, the importance of the cultural and creative industries. The examples of good practices in destinations which develop cultural tourism are shown as well as the concept of the European capital of culture. More detailed analysis is focused on cultural tourism in Croatia, where examples of chosen cities are presented. The determinants of permanent and future successful managing of the cultural tourism development in cities are commented. The analysis has confirmed that sustainable development of cultural tourism produces economic and socio-cultural benefits, it can minimise negative impacts of the tourism development in the cities and revitalise or create recognizable destinations. This can be of special interest for the destinations which are faced with seasonality problems and this also represents the opportunity for the creative tourism in developing unique supply. Here is necessary to enhance quality cooperation and partnerships between different stakeholders, policy actors, to valorise the existing potentials and evaluate economic, social and ecological influences on the urban areas.