LATIN AMERICA. The annual ASUTIL Conference will take place in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana on 2-5 June 2026, the Latin American travel retail industry association has announced.
The event will take place at the Paradisus by Melia resort in Punta Cana.
The choice of the popular Caribbean tourist location was revealed yesterday (30 September) by ASUTIL President Enrique Urioste at a press conference in the Palais de Festivals in Cannes, where the TFWA World Exhibition is taking place this week. Follow our live coverage here.
ASUTIL Secretary General Carlos Loaiza-Keel spoke at the press conference, where he revealed that Duty Free Americas will be the event’s lead sponsor for the milestone 25th edition of the conference.
Loaiza-Keel emphasised the success of last year’s conference in Lima, Peru, which was a 325-delegate sell out. Some 70% of attendees rated the event as ‘excellent’ and 85% found the conference sessions and panels both useful and insightful, he noted.
Loaiza-Keel commented, “Those results confirm that ASUTIL is not only growing but also consolidating its role as a platform for the travel retail business and for connections in Latin America.
“Lima showed also that the ASUTIL [conference] model works. An agenda that balances good quality of knowledge, networking and the sense of community. That is the foundation on which we are building our future [as an association].”
ASUTIL Conference & Business Developer Diego De Freitas said the 2026 conference will maintain a limited capacity “to preserve the intimate and productive atmosphere that defines our events”.
He added that there will an exclusive window for 2025 attendees to register, ahead of conference tickets going on general sale.
“We are confident that 2026 will be once again a perfect event for networking, for business and for connecting with each other,” he commented.
Earlier, Urioste gave his thoughts on ASUTIL’s selection of a Caribbean location.
“The Caribbean is a region where tourism is growing very fast, and duty free has expanded from mainly alcohol liquid products into a multi-category region, with the necessary presence, power and presentation; it’s working,” he said.
“We have seen massive infrastructure works both in the airports and other ports. We’re going to go to Punta Cana. But the Dominican Republic is much more than Punta Cana, it is one of the islands in the Caribbean where tourism has grown the most.”
On ASUTIL’s future role, Urioste concluded: “We believe that we are the ones who can build our future. The future won’t just come for us. We need to shape it. We need to take every challenge and need to take every opportunity and make it happen.” ✈
