In response to the growing awareness and concernof countries about the negative impacts of mass tourism, the notion of sustainable tourism has emerged. Such a concept is defined as tourism that meets the needs of tourists and receptive regions in the present, while preserving and enhancing opportunities for the future. On the one hand, the paper outlines the principles of sustainable development, the goals that must be achieved to make tourism sustainable and the steps to achieve it. The second part of the paper analyzes the development of sustainable tourism, exclusively in Croatia. In terms of sustainable tourism, Croatia should present itself as a quality destination, not only for summer tourism, but should also have a selective, specific tourism offer different from those provided by European competing destinations. For this to become true, a tourism development strategy until 2020 has been adopted, which sets out key tourism policy activities aimed at improving the competitiveness of Croatian tourism and using the resource base on the principles of responsible and sustainable tourism.