ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews approaches to urban tourism developed in the literature and outlines the main key features of tourism development in Havana during the Special Period. It deals with an outline of the role played by urban tourism in Havana within Cuba's tourism development strategy. The promotion of Cuba as a tourist destination has been undertaken mostly in the 'Sun and Beaches' segment of the global tourism market. Urban tourism was one of the earliest forms of tourism by the mid-eighteenth century, when European aristocrats and nobility started to 'tour' European cities with their courtesans. Academic research into tourism developed during the 1960s and 1970s as a subdiscipline of other social sciences rather than as an area of study in its own right. Tourism and urban functions are interdependent with tourist and residents sharing and sometimes competing for many services, spaces and amenities.
