City tourism is one of the most frequently chosen forms of tourism and consists of many motives. On the modern tourist market, there are many negative phenomena that significantly affect the functioning of urban tourist destinations but primarily have an impact on the decisions of potential tourists about choosing cities as a tourist destination. These phenomena pose a threat to the development of both cities and tourism. They are conditioned by endogenous factors, which result from the functioning of the city, and exogenous ones, i.e., those related to socio-economic relations of the city with the environment, including tourist traffic. Cities, as a destination or transit tourist destination, are characterized by high concentrations of tourist traffic; hence the negative phenomena often affect urban tourist space with great intensity. The aim of this study is to identify threats affecting the possibility of shaping sustainable tourism in urban destinations. In the following parts, theseissues will be presented: urban tourism, sustainable tourism, classification and characterization of threats related to the sustainable development of urban tourism, along with empirical illustration of selected phenomena, after presenting the concept of sustainable urban tourism development policy. The study is of a theoretical and conceptual nature, with elements of empirical research results. The following research methods will be used: critical analysis of the literature, methods of logical operations, case studies.