Today's tourists are looking for quality vacation and they are investigating and devising their own journeys. They are looking for new tourist destinations with the goal of getting to know the local environment in which they traveled. Cultural contact is an unavoidable phenomenon in tourism. In a fundamental relationship between the host and the guest, there is a kind of dialogue between cultural and national identities, and this contact brings a number of changes both in the local community itself and in the tourist's perception. Tourism is an area where interculturalism is actively applied because every participant in the contact represents and offers its own culture. Due to the constant contact with tourists of various cultural heritage, there is a real possibility of losing the traditional way of life of the local population. Therefore, a rational planning of tourism is needed in order to reconcile possible conflicts between the needs of development, the need to protect and improve the tourist destination. The definition of interculturalism in tourism has shown the importance of culture in tourism and that is the goal of this paper. Special emphasis has been placed on the positive and negative impact of tourism on culture and the local population of a tourist destination. An example of practice shows the consequences of accelerated tourism development on the town of Novalja. Novalja has become the economic center of the island of Pag, even with the developed ´´Party tourism´´ that sometimes disturbs the peace in the city. Novalja is constantly trying to improve the quality of life and work of people to be a desirable and safe destination in which it is desirable to live and work.