Adompretur names 13-member jury for the 2026 PEL award

The Dominican Tourism Press Association (Adompretur) unveiled the jury for the 2026 edition of the Epifanio Lantigua National Tourism Journalism Award (PEL 2026). 13 professionals from journalism, communication, academia, hotels and tourism will evaluate the submitted entries. The jury is chaired by Ana Bélgica Güichardo, a doctor in Journalism and Communication trained at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and currently director of the Communication School at PUCMM. She is joined by figures such as Aguie Lendor (Asonahores), Ernesto Veloz, Caroll Mueses, Danny Rincón, Julián Sosa, Luis Felipe Aquino, Yahaira Brea and Rosa Alcántara, among others, confirming the bet on a multidisciplinary panel.

The choice of Güichardo is no accident. Having an academic with more than two decades of teaching chair the panel says a lot about the shift Adompretur wants for the award: less institutional photo op and more journalistic rigor. Adompretur president Sarah Hernández framed it as a search for "experience, specialized knowledge and different professional perspectives." Vice president and PEL executive director Millizen Uribe stressed the diversity of profiles as a contribution to the evaluation. As reported by Arecoa, the jury already held its first plenary session, where the chair was formally elected.

Why does this matter for the Dominican tourism sector and not just for journalists? Because the PEL is one of the few platforms that each year puts the destination's narrative to the test. Hotels, tour operators and MITUR offices live off what is said about Punta Cana, Bávaro, Samaná, Puerto Plata, La Romana or Santo Domingo, and an award with a jury of this caliber pushes that narrative toward professionalism. When recognition goes to well-documented work and not to a disguised advertorial, the whole destination wins: coverage for travelers improves, the information investors in hotels consume improves and the sector's argument before authorities improves. Having Asonahores on the panel through Aguie Lendor points precisely to that link between press and business.

The context the note does not develop is the growing weight of communication in the Dominican tourism economy. The country competes with the rest of the Caribbean for the attention of source markets, and that battle is fought both on the runway and in headlines. An award with clear rules and a jury mixing academia, trade groups and media is soft infrastructure for the destination, even if it does not show up in arrival figures.

For industry professionals, the reading is clear: it pays to track who wins and with which angles, because winning works tend to set the following year's agenda. Adompretur has placed the first piece with the October plenary, and the jury's next meeting will say a lot about the level of this edition.