Travel And Tour World (TTW)'s 2026 ranking places the country in 25th position out of 50 beach destinations globally, with Punta Cana and Samaná as its main generators of international recognition
SANTO DOMINGO. – The Dominican Republic ranks 25th among the 50 best beach destinations in the world for 2026, according to the editorial ranking published on July 25 by Travel And Tour World (TTW), a digital travel platform that evaluated more than 500 beaches globally.
The list, topped by Greece, Australia, Mexico, Spain and Thailand, is a ranking by country, not by individual beaches, built from criteria such as natural beauty, coastal diversity, tourism infrastructure, sustainability and marine ecosystems, explained Anup Kumar Keshan, founder and editor-in-chief of TTW.
Within the Caribbean, the country ranks behind Turks and Caicos (15), Bahamas (16), Anguilla (22) and Antigua and Barbuda (23), but ahead of Aruba, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Saint Lucia, Jamaica and Grenada, all located in later positions on the list.
TTW's ranking adds to a string of accolades that the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) itself highlighted weeks earlier: during the first half of 2026, five Dominican beaches, Canto de la Playa, Bahía de las Águilas, Bávaro, Playa Bonita and Playa de Los Patos, received mentions from media and platforms such as Lonely Planet, Tripadvisor, National Geographic, Travel + Leisure and The World's 50 Best Beaches, a list in which Canto de la Playa ranked 20th worldwide.
The TTW ranking, by evaluating countries rather than specific beaches, offers a complementary interpretation of this same phenomenon.
The five highest-rated beaches
TTW accompanied each country's ranking by identifying its ten most outstanding beaches. In the case of the Dominican Republic, these are the top five:
1. Canto de la Playa, Saona Island (La Altagracia). Within the East National Park, it is the strip of white sand most associated with day trips from Bayahibe; TTW describes it for its white sand and turquoise waters.
2. Bávaro Beach, Punta Cana (La Altagracia). The heart of the country's main hotel hub, with the highest concentration of all-inclusive resorts in the region and a sea with calm waves for most of the year.
3. Rincón Beach, Samaná (Samaná). Considered by international publications among the most photogenic beaches in the Caribbean, it is distinguished by its extensive coastline, palm groves and mountains that drop almost directly into the sea.
4. Playa Bonita, Las Terrenas (Samaná). With a more boutique profile than Punta Cana, it combines waves suitable for beginner surfers with a smaller-scale hotel offering.
5. Bahía de las Águilas, Pedernales (Pedernales). The most remote of the five and the one with the smallest development footprint: it is located within the Jaragua National Park and its limited access is, at the same time, its main attraction and its biggest challenge in terms of tourist infrastructure.
Samaná and La Altagracia, tied in the top 10
When reviewing the ten Dominican beaches listed by TTW and grouping them by province, the most relevant fact is that two demarcations concentrate eight of the ten mentions, in a technical tie that illustrates two models of coastal tourism development that coexist in the country:
| Province | Beaches in the top 10 | Which |
| La Altagracia | 4 | Saona Island, Bavaro, Juanillo (Cap Cana), Macau |
| Samaná | 4 | Rincón, Bonita (Las Terrenas), Frontón, Cosón (Las Terrenas) |
| María Trinidad Sánchez | 1 | Playa Grande (San Juan River) |
| Flints | 1 | Eagle Bay |
The Punta Cana and Bávaro area, with its large-scale hotels and massive flow of visitors, contrasts with Samaná, which has a more fragmented product between Las Terrenas, Samaná capital and its surroundings, geared towards lower-density tourism.
Playa Grande, in María Trinidad Sánchez, and Bahía de las Águilas, in Pedernales, appear as the only mentions of their respective provinces, both associated with a low real estate development profile on the eastern coast.
Voices from the sector
Recent statements from the hotel association allow us to interpret the finding within a broader context. At the launch of the Asonahores 2026 Trade Expo, the association's president, Juan Bancalari, stated that "the true scope of tourism goes far beyond hotels and beaches," emphasizing that the sector's strength depends on a production chain, suppliers, entrepreneurs, and companies that sustain the tourist experience beyond coastal infrastructure.
Along the same lines, Bancalari warned weeks ago, in the context of a review of the record visitor numbers for the first half of the year, that the growth of Dominican tourism must be accompanied by responses to challenges that directly affect the quality of the beach offering: environmental sustainability, sargassum management, and the regulation of tourist rental platforms, among others.
It is precisely the sustainability and marine ecosystem factors that TTW includes among the criteria of its ranking, which suggests that maintaining the 25th position, and not just achieving it, will depend on how the country manages these fronts in the coming years.
Methodology
According to TTW, the selection was based on its own editorial research framework that evaluated each country on natural beauty, beach diversity, accessibility, tourism infrastructure, sustainability, marine biodiversity and visitor experience, with information from national tourism boards, government agencies, marine conservation authorities, tourism statistics, aviation data and hotel reports.
It should be clarified that this ranking of countries is different from the list of individual beaches, The World's 50 Best Beaches, prepared by a panel of more than 1,000 professionals in the sector with the collaboration of Tripadvisor, whose 2016 edition crowned Entalula Beach, in the Philippines, as the best beach in the world; no Dominican beach appeared on that independent list.
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