Recently, urban tourism has been growing exponentialy causing multiple negative effects on local communities of urban destinations. Therefore, it is neccesary to approach its development whilst abiding the postulates of sustainable tourism development. However, the difficulties of the relationship between urban tourism and local communities has not oftenly occured as a subject of interest in literature. The first part of the paper contains an overview of scientificly theoretic concepts and aspects regarding sustainable development, sustainable tourism development and also the role and importance of opinions and perceptions which the local community shares regarding the development of toursim in urban destinations. The practical part of the paper was used to condone a survey directed at the citizens of Split, questioning participation and opinions on how tourism is affecting their city and them personally. After analyzing and interpreting the acquired data we can conclude that the questioned citizens want to participate in the planning of tourism development but they do not know how. They also lack knowledge and insight, resulting in indiferent opinions on socio-cultural effects of tourism but their understanding of ecological and economical effects is credible. Research also shows that working in tourism is connected to the will of participating in tourism planning while the location of residence does not raise dissatisfaction from either noise or the cities crowdedness.