1 INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL FOCUS CULTURAL TOURISM AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT TOURISM ECONOMICS Jordi Suriñach AQR Research Group. University of Barcelona E: jsurinach@ub.edu Karl Wöber MODUL University Vienna, Austria Department of Tourism and Service Management E: karl.woeber@modul.ac.at In a world where more than half of the population already lives in cities and more than 90 percent of urban growth is occurring in the developing world (Licciardi and Amirtahmasebi, 2012), cities have the potential to serve as incubators of innovation and technology. However, there are also many challenges for cities that can be classified into economic, environmental, and social threats. Cities, for instance, consume 75 per cent of worldwide energy production and generate 80 per cent of CO2 emissions (Lazaroiua and Rosciab, 2012). The ‘smart city’ paradigm, which has been adopted by many cities worldwide, represents an environment where innovation and technology supplement activities and services of a city in order to provide benefits to the residents and visitors. In Europe, initiatives for sustainable development of cities have been characterised and defined by a number of factors including environmental sustainability, economic development and a high quality of life. The greater global mobility, the information boom and the increased knowledge- sharing between people in recent years facilitate the development of urban structures and lead to higher levels of city tourism demand. Crowding, congestion, waiting time in front of tourism attractions, emissions, and pollution caused by mass tourism in cities, however, are negative effects of uncontrolled tourism development in urban regions. There are also obvious conflicts when cities, for instance, claim that they want to become ‘smart’ (or ‘green’) and at the same time launch projects to increase air transportation by building additional runways and attracting additional airlines. The relationship between tourists and citizens, or the tourism industry and the local community, is also increasingly compromised by uncontrolled tourism development in cities.