Over the last 20 years, there has been accelerated change in systems of government worldwide. Economic and social changes shaped by the developments in global economy also effected the structural changes in public administration. There have been interrelated efforts to reduce and streamline bureaucracy, shifts from administration to managerialism, and increased emphasis on the efficiency and effectiveness of policy processes and programs. There has also been a strong push to devolve responsibilities. These changes have contributed to a ‘hollowing out’ of government at all levels and the expansion of non-government agencies involved in policy-making. Policy-making has become a governance issue in most cases and partnerships have become their driving forces. Planning issues have also been affected from these and different planning practices started to look for the appropriate models with emphasis on the essentials of their practices. Stakeholder theory is a product of these efforts and theoretical part of this study is constructed on this theory. Achieving the successful governance and partnership models, however, is not an easy process. There is a need to advance knowledge and practice about the types of partnerships; the roles of government and other stakeholders; the way local governments can apply these partnerships to their structure in different aspects; and the critical issues and challenges to local governments and other stakeholders seeking to create such partnerships. Tourism is known as a stable growth sector. If the revenues are distributed to the relevant stakeholders including the community justly and the efforts on tourism are based on a sustainable future target, this growth can be translated to development. Sustainable tourism aims to minimize environmental and cultural damage, optimize visitor satisfaction and maximize longterm economic growth for the region. Ideally, sustainable tourism seeks a balance between present benefits and enhancement of future opportunities for the host community. Sustainable tourism development must be operationalized in order to reach the goals of sustainable tourism. With regard to tourism strategies cities should be evaluated together with their rural areas, natural, historical and archeological sites as well as their neighboring cities; that are they should be evaluated within a regional system. Such an approach will provide tourists belonging to different age and income groups or interests with the opportunity of combined and alternative tours and develop the tourism economy within a thematic and regional context. This means more relations between different levels of administrative structures, local governments as well as more stakeholders to take part in a proposed tourism governance strategy within regional network behavior. It is essential to determine the type of partnership for providing cultural heritage sustainability, encouraging proper infrastructure investment, facilitating the accessibility, maintaining economic, cultural and social livability, minimizing ecological devastation, balancing consumption and supporting sustainable urban development. Achieving this however, involves advancing knowledge and practice about the types of partnerships that can be formed to promote urban development; the roles of government and other stakeholders; how local governments can apply such partnerships to local tourism development; and the critical issues and challenges to local governments and other stakeholders seeking to create such partnerships. Developing sustainable tourism always presents a process that is unique for the area, due to the multiple stakeholders and interests involved. In a unique process, there is no standard procedure to structure the problem solving. Hence, the process has to go through two phases, which can be described as the ‘‘target setting’’- what do we wantand the ‘‘planning’’-how do we get it. Designing collaboration involves the same steps: the coordination of policies-agreement on objectives and goals-followed by administrative co-ordination, and the forming of tools to implement the goals. Stakeholder involvement is critical to the process of sustainable tourism development. In this study, detailed dynamics and interactions of these different actors in tourism are analyzed in order to find out the appropriate governance model in tourism development plan. This is expected to bring about the importance of urban networks and institutional partnerships in tourism development. Frig Valley, which lies in the border of Kütahya, Afyonkarahisar, Eskişehir provinces in Turkey and having a great tourism potential, has been chosen as a case study within the scope of the study. This study will allow the importance of urban networks and institutional partnerships, in tourism development to be realized.