Adompretur adopts 10 principles for regional travel journalism

The Dominican Association of Tourism Press (Adompretur) closed its First International Tourism Journalism Forum on Friday, October 23, with the adoption of the Santo Domingo Declaration, a manifesto of 10 binding principles for specialized media across Latin America and the Caribbean. The event, held at the Hotel Dominican Fiesta in the capital and framed by the 30th anniversary of the Caribbean Tourism Exchange (BTC), featured Adompretur president Sarah Hernández and international journalists who backed the document under the motto "Count, Connect, and Transform".

The shift the declaration proposes is concrete: move away from promotional copy disguised as news and cover tourism through its economic, social and cultural footprint. For hoteliers in Punta Cana, Bávaro or Puerto Plata, that means the next time a local outlet covers a multimillion-dollar room investment it won't stop at the pool photo, it will ask about jobs created, the fiscal burden on the province and the impact on the community. It is a roadmap that also challenges MITUR and investors: if journalism raises its bar, the information behind hotel investment decisions improves. As reported by Dominican Today, the text demands an unyielding boundary between objective news and sponsored commercial content, a point the Caribbean doesn't always honor.

The manifesto also addresses artificial intelligence in newsrooms. It allows technological tools to analyze data and expand reach, but subordinates algorithms to human verification and editorial oversight. In a sector where arrival figures for the Dominican Republic drive investment decisions, that fact-checking requirement is a guarantee for professionals who need reliable data, not headlines inflated by a text generator. The declaration stresses ethics, independence and heritage protection, three fronts where regional travel journalism has room to improve and, above all, an opportunity to differentiate itself.

The reading is clear: Adompretur isn't just celebrating its forum, it is putting in writing what the sector needs from its media. A press that investigates tourism's fiscal impact in the provinces is an asset for the destination, because it helps public and private decisions be made with verified information. Watch how those 10 principles land in Dominican newsrooms and whether regional outlets adopt the same standard. Dominican tourism has record numbers to tell, and now it also has a manual to tell them well.