The room temperature photoluminescence emission characteristics of cerium chloride doped aluminum oxide films deposited by spray pyrolysis are reported. The spectra of the photoluminescence excited with 300 nm light on these samples show a broad emission formed by two overlapping peaks at 365 and 395 nm. The relative emission intensity of these peaks to each other and as a whole is strongly dependent on the doping concentration and the deposition temperature. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy analysis of the samples as well as the correlations observed with the light emission intensity suggest that the luminescence observed is associated with the molecular incorporation of the CeCl3 into the aluminum oxide and not to the presence of atomic Ce in the film.