This article aims to focus on the lesser known issues related to the impact of tourism on destinations. The author will analyze this impact from the perspective of sustainable development, a concept that found its place much later than it should have in the universe of research in tourism studies. This article is logically structured in three directions of research, as follows: the first part will analyze the main effects of tourism on destinations from the perspective of sustainable development; the second part will focus on a similar analysis, but focused on the human dimension; the third part will focus on the recent "dispute" in the literature between the importance of building new tourism development strategies from the perspective of sustainable development, suggesting an appropriate solution to integrate the two visions into a common approach.