Urban tourism efficiency is a hot topic for the academic research on urban tourism and its sustainable development. Relevant research on urban tourism has achieved fruitful results while lacking of the typical case study based on efficiency analysis; on the other hand, the research on sustainable development presently overstresses the measures and means for sustainable development while lacking of the analysis on process and influence mechanism. In this regard, to research a typical city’s influence on its tourism in the course of development, especially from the angle of process, appears urgent and essential. The tourism development in Zhangjiajie highly depends on the urban development, and the urban development’s influence on the tourism development varies significantly at different stages. According to the Data Envelopment Analysis principle, this research project attributes the urban development’s influence on tourism development to three factors, i.e. resources input capacity, allocation level and utilization method. Taking the Five-Year Plan as a cycle, this project will compare the said influence in four stages since the administrative establishment of Zhangjiajie City, in order to analyze the process and mechanism for the urban development influencing the tourism efficiency and the sub-efficiency through three factors, to explore the general mechanism for urban development to influence the tourism efficiency, to seek for the optimal way for increasing the tourism efficiency and utilizing resources under the economic development framework and finally to provide scientific guidance on the sustainable development of cities and cities’ tourism.