The study of urban tourism and associated focus on urban tourist precincts is a growing area of interest as practitioners, researchers and policy makers seek to understand the phenomenon of tourism within the urban environment. In Australia research in this area has lacked integration and has not engaged sufficiently with the contextual setting of the urban environment. This paper reports on a study that was undertaken to identify the important areas that should be included in an urban tourism research agenda. This paper has three aims: to review the literature on urban tourism; to outline the process that was undertaken to identify areas for urban tourism research; and to present a conceptual framework that can be used to focus future urban tourism research.