Three initiatives began their journey in 2025, and one of them, nautical tourism, carries an older file, although it returned to the Plenary in August 2026, while gastronomy and lifeguards were reintroduced with new files
SANTO DOMINGO– The Senate's Permanent Tourism Commission has an agenda on the table that combines new rules for tourism activities with proposals aimed at regulating specific segments of the industry.
However, tracking the cases shows that not all are at the same stage, nor did all of them arrive at the commission for the first time during this period.
This mid-September 2026, the legislative work has four pending bills: the one that creates and regulates tourism and ecotourism clusters, the one for the promotion of gastronomic tourism, the one that regulates the service of lifeguards and the installation of watchtowers and the one for recreational nautical tourism.
The first three have files currently assigned to the Tourism Commission and the fourth is an initiative originally presented in 2024, approved at that time by the Senate, which did not complete its legislative process and was resumed in 2026.
Converting clusters into a legal entity
The bill that creates and regulates tourism and ecotourism clusters in the Dominican Republic has the file number 01265-2025-SLO-SE, which was deposited on December 11, 2025 by Senator Cristóbal Venerado Castillo, and sent that same day to the Permanent Commission of Tourism.
The proposal seeks to establish a legal framework for tourism and ecotourism clusters, with the participation of public and private actors linked to the destinations.
Its public review has not yet resulted in a favorable report submitted to the Plenary. In June 2026, the Commission again placed it among the initiatives under study and received, along with other tourism projects, the opinions of representatives from the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Public Health.
The meeting of June 11, 2026 is the last formal step that appears jointly documented for this file in the work summaries of the commissions and on that day the positions of the invited institutions were heard and a new call was left pending.
The project, therefore, remains in the committee study phase and there is no evidence in the consulted documentation that it has been submitted to the Plenary for first discussion or that the Committee has submitted a final legislative report.
The concept it seeks to regulate is not entirely unrelated to existing tourism policy. The Ministry of Tourism itself has worked with clusters in various destinations, as evidenced by institutional documentation that records, for example, its coordination with the Jarabacoa Tourism Cluster.
The difference is that the legislative initiative seeks to establish a regulation of national scope for this figure.
Gastronomy: two files and one project
The Gastronomic Tourism Promotion Bill currently has the file number 01338-2026-PLO-SE, presented by Senator Rafael Barón Duluc Rijo, but its history began earlier.
The same project was originally submitted on June 3, 2025, marked with file number 00789-2025-PLO-SE and was taken into consideration on June 5 and sent to the Tourism Commission that same day.
During 2025 the Commission reported progress on its study: the file appeared on the agenda on July 1, when a management report was read, and it appeared again on December 9, also for the reading of a management report.
On November 20, 2025, the Commission met with representatives from industry associations who expressed their support for the initiative and pledged to submit written comments. The Commission also decided to request the opinion of the Ministry of Tourism.
Instead of remaining associated with that earlier bill, the initiative resurfaced in 2026 under number 01338-2026-PLO-SE, filed on January 29 and presented by the same Senator Duluc Rijo. The Senate took it up for consideration on March 4 and referred it to the Standing Committee on Tourism.
This allows us to speak of a second legislative stage of the initiative, but not to affirm that file 01338 has been sent to committee several times: the one that has the 2025 route is 00789, while 01338 is a new file, with the same project.
The piece seeks to promote gastronomic tourism as an instrument of sustainable cultural, economic and tourism development and to establish measures to recognize, preserve and promote the Dominican culinary heritage and integrate it into the national tourism offer.
In June, the Commission again consulted with institutions linked to the sector. And on July 16, 2026, it reported a further step forward: the Commission's president, Ginnette Bournigal de Jiménez, and the technical team reviewed the modifications incorporated into the project in order to identify aspects susceptible to improvement and assess their feasibility before submitting a favorable report to the Plenary.
The initiative is therefore more advanced than one that has just been submitted but is still within the Commission. The latest public action identified is the technical review of the amendments and the preparation of a potential report.
The sources reviewed do not yet show a definitive legislative report that has brought this new file to the Plenary.
Lifesavers: an initiative that also has a precedent
The project that regulates the lifeguard service and the installation of watchtowers in public and private beaches currently has the file 01425-2026-PLO-SE, which was deposited on March 5, 2026 by Senator Santiago José Zorrilla and sent to the Permanent Commission of Tourism.
But this isn't strictly a new initiative either. The same legislative proposal had already been submitted on February 17, 2025, under file number 00452-2025-PLO-SE.
That project was part of the Commission's work during 2025 and appears in the Senate minutes and in the corresponding institutional documentation for that period.
In December 2025, the Commission submitted a management report on the previous case. By then, it had already begun consultations with stakeholders in the sector.
The Senate's documentation records, among other things, the reception of representatives of entities linked to tourism and the request for institutional opinions.
In March 2026, the new file 01425 appeared, which was sent back to the Commission.
The new initiative proposes regulating lifeguard services and establishing lifeguard towers at public and private beaches. The text included in the legislative documentation also outlines obligations for establishments and a system of penalties.
The case was formally addressed again on June 11, 2026, when the Commission received representatives from the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Public Health to hear their opinions on the project.
That is the last publicly known step for the initiative within the Commission. Its current status is therefore under review, with no public record of a final report submitted to the Plenary.
The existence of a 2025 bill and a 2026 bill is relevant for telling the story correctly: it is not appropriate to add them together as if they were two separate laws. These are two successive bills on the same legislative matter.
Nautical tourism returns to the legislative process
The bill regulating recreational nautical tourism is file 00007-2024-SLO-SE, presented by Senators Alexis Victoria Yeb and Ginnette Bournigal de Jiménez in August 2024 and is by far the oldest of the four.
The Senate approved it in the second discussion on September 4, 2024, and it did not complete its journey through Congress at that time, ending up outside the legislative process and was resumed in 2026.
On August 26, 2026, the Senate reviewed it again and approved it on first reading.
The piece establishes a framework to regulate and promote recreational nautical tourism activities.
Unlike the other projects, this one has already been reviewed by the full assembly. It is not in the same situation as an initiative awaiting a committee report for the first time.
The August approval came after the project was revived and resumed its legislative process. Senate legislative records still list the bill within the Tourism Committee.
The most recent development is particularly important: after the first reading approval, the Tourism Commission returned to work on the initiative in early September, with the participation of representatives from institutions directly linked to maritime and tourism activity.
Representatives from the Ministry of Tourism, the Navy, the Ministry of Environment, and APORDOM, among other entities, participated in that review.
The project has therefore been approved in its first reading and is in the process of continuing its legislative procedure, with a review of its content before completing the second discussion.
Its trajectory also explains why it should not be described simply as a project "pending in committee": it has been going on for more than two years, was approved in 2024, did not complete the congressional process and returned to the process in 2026.
Three resolutions: the Commission's other agenda
Along with these bills, the Tourism Commission has worked on territorial initiatives that have already passed the study phase and were approved by the Senate.
These are three resolutions related to Hato Mayor: the remodeling of Las Cañitas beach, the installation of a provincial office of the Ministry of Tourism in Hato Mayor, and the construction of the Sabana de la Mar boardwalk.
Las Cañitas: The Senate requests a project whose execution must be reviewed by the Ministry of Tourism
The resolution requesting the Ministry of Tourism to remodel Las Cañitas beach was submitted on September 15, 2025, and sent to the Tourism Commission on September 23.
The Commission subsequently submitted a management report and the Plenary session ended up approving the resolution.
When comparing the legislative request with the public documentation consulted from the Ministry of Tourism and the Electronic System of Public Procurement, no process appears in the reviewed sources that allows us to affirm that the specific remodeling of Las Cañitas is currently tendered, awarded or in execution by MITUR.
That doesn't mean the Ministry doesn't plan to intervene at the site. It means there isn't enough publicly available evidence to classify the project in one of those stages.
The difference is important: the Senate resolution constitutes a request for action, it does not in itself prove that there is a budgeted or contracted work.
Sabana de la Mar boardwalk: resolution approved, but no public works identified at the intersection
The Commission also studied the request for the construction of the Sabana de la Mar seawall.
The Senate approved the resolution after the Commission submitted its report.
The cross-referencing of public information from MITUR and Public Procurement did not identify a MITUR procurement procedure that would allow the project to be listed as currently tendered, awarded, or under execution.
The Electronic Public Procurement System registers the Ministry of Tourism as an institution integrated into the system and allows its processes to be consulted; however, the existence of the Ministry in the system does not constitute evidence that a given work has been contracted.
Therefore, the rigorous classification for this investigation is: resolution approved by the Senate; specific work not located as a MITUR contracting process in the reviewed public sources.
Hato Mayor already appears in the MITUR structure
The third resolution requests the Ministry of Tourism to establish a provincial office in Hato Mayor.
Here the crossing produces a different result.
The institutional organizational chart published by MITUR includes a Tourism Office in Hato Mayor within its territorial structure.
This does not automatically imply that the Senate resolution has been fulfilled. The resolution may refer to an office with specific characteristics, location, scope, or operating conditions that cannot be determined solely from the organizational chart.
But it does allow us to document one fact: MITUR already recognizes a Tourism Office in Hato Mayor within its organizational structure.
The remaining question to close this point is whether that office corresponds exactly to what was requested by the Senate, since when it has been operating, where it functions, and what difference exists between the existing structure and the office whose installation was requested by the resolution.
The legislative map
Tracking the files provides a more accurate picture than simply listing pending projects.
The tourism and ecotourism cluster project, submitted in December 2025, remains under study and has not yet registered a final report for the Plenary.
The gastronomic tourism project has a history of two files: it began as 00789 in June 2025, received management reports during that year and reappeared as 01338 in January 2026. In July the Commission was already reviewing modifications with a view to a favorable report.
The lifeguard project also has two files: 00452, deposited in February 2025, and 01425, submitted in March 2026. The Commission continued institutional consultations in June and the file remains under study.
The nautical tourism bill, on the other hand, has the longest history: file 00007-2024, approved by the Senate in 2024, without completing the legislative process at that time and resumed in 2026. In August it was approved again, this time in the first reading, and subsequently continued under review.
The Commission's other line of work, the territorial one, has already produced three approved resolutions regarding Hato Mayor. A comparison with the Ministry of Tourism (MITUR) reveals that, for two of these resolutions, it has not been possible to identify any contract for the requested work in the consulted public sources, while in the case of the provincial office, there is already a registered MITUR department within its structure.
Rather than a list of pending projects, the Commission's file thus shows different legislative speeds: newly submitted initiatives, projects that reappear with new numbers after an initial review, pieces that advanced to the Plenary and resolutions that have already been approved and now require monitoring of their implementation.
The next step in this investigation is to verify, file by file, whether the Commission has issued new reports after the latest actions located and, in the cases that reach the Plenary, what specific modifications are contained in the version that is finally submitted to a vote.
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