This thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical one and a research one. The theoretical one deals with selected issues of modem mass tourism with emphasize on urban tourism and its social and economic aspects. The selected issues are city marketing, congress tourism, security in tourism, forms of tourism with increased social risk and sustainable tourism. The research part is based on interviews with tourism experts from municipal authorities of Prague and Hradec Kralove. The objective of the interviews was to demarcate the major features of the municipal authorities' tourism policy with emphasize on the aforementioned theoretical issues and to compare the policies ofthe two cities
