Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – The Dominican Association of Tourism Press (Adompretur) is gearing up to host a landmark event for global tourism media: its first-ever International Tourism Journalism Forum, scheduled for October 23. Held as a core component of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Caribbean Tourism Exchange (BTC), the one-day gathering will bring together leading journalists, industry analysts and tourism experts from four regional nations – Argentina, Mexico, Panama and the Dominican Republic – to unpack three transformative forces reshaping travel coverage: artificial intelligence, sustainable development, and evolving digital media formats.
The forum will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Dominican Fiesta Hotel in central Santo Domingo, organized around the overarching theme “Tell, Connect and Transform: New Narratives for Tourism Destinations.” Organizers designed the agenda to explore cutting-edge approaches to destination storytelling, as well as the unique role that specialized tourism journalism plays in bridging travelers with authentic local cultures, community-led experiences and grassroots tourism initiatives.
In comments ahead of the event, Adompretur President Sarah Hernández emphasized that the forum fills a critical gap in the industry, creating a dedicated collaborative space to address mounting professional challenges. As audience consumption habits shift, legacy media outlets restructure, and digital platforms and generative AI upend traditional content production workflows, industry practitioners need coordinated dialogue to adapt, she noted. Beyond professional development, the gathering also aims to strengthen cross-sector and cross-border ties between journalists, press associations, public tourism agencies and academic institutions across Latin America and the Caribbean.
The event’s program features a stacked lineup of regional industry leaders. Argentine journalist Fernando Milo, secretary of the International Federation of Tourism Press (FIPETUR) and host of the popular multiplatform tourism program *Contexto Turístico* broadcast on Argentina’s Telemax, will deliver the opening keynote address, bearing the same title as the forum’s overall theme: “Tell, Connect and Transform: Tourism Journalism and the Destinations of the Future.”
Mexican journalist Armando de la Garza will lead a dedicated session on reimagining how destinations showcase their unique appeal to modern travelers and build authentic connections with audiences across digital channels. A separate panel, “Tourism Journalism Without Borders: New Perspectives on Latin America and the Caribbean,” will feature Dominican tourism expert and economic consultant Juan Lladó and Yzela Noriega, president of the Association of Panamanian Tourism Communicators (COPTUR), exploring cross-regional collaboration in travel storytelling.
Sustainable destination development is another central focus of the forum’s agenda. Veteran journalist and former Adompretur president Luis José Chávez will moderate a discussion with architect Julio César Corral on how infrastructure planning, land-use policy and cultural heritage preservation shape both destination development and how media cover those places.
A high-stakes panel focused on artificial intelligence, social media and emerging digital content formats will tackle the technology-driven shifts reshaping tourism journalism, with a specific focus on pressing systemic issues: information verification, the spread of travel misinformation, protecting professional journalistic credibility, and upholding ethical standards for AI-generated content. Experts José Ramón Torres and Guillermo Molina Mueses will lead this conversation.
Additional agenda items include a structured debate on multidestination travel as a strategic framework to deepen tourism integration and cooperative links between the Dominican Republic, the broader Caribbean and Latin American markets.
Before the forum concludes, Adompretur will unveil the Santo Domingo Declaration on Tourism Journalism and Communication, a landmark document outlining shared guiding principles for responsible professional practice in the field. The declaration will cover core priorities including ethical reporting, editorial independence, responsible AI utilization, embedding sustainability into tourism coverage, and advancing cross-regional industry cooperation.
The forum is coordinated by veteran Dominican journalists José Rafael Sosa, José Antonio Aybar and José Tejada Gómez. In a statement ahead of the event, Adompretur emphasized that the initiative aligns with the organization’s long-standing commitment to professional training and cross-industry expertise exchange, with the ultimate goal of supporting inclusive tourism development that delivers tangible economic and social opportunities for local communities across the region.