Who is building the Caribbean’s next hotels?

Behind the Caribbean’s next wave of hotels are family businesses, repeat developers and owners taking established brands into new destinations. The names on the signs—Nobu, Beaches, Hyatt and others—tell only part of the story.

Bystreet’s November 2026 Caribbean Hotel Developments report tracks 386 projects across 26 markets, including 340 new developments. Five owner groups show how that pipeline is taking shape.

RCD Hotels: taking established brands into new markets

UNICO 18°77° Montego Bay, the collection’s first project in Jamaica. Rendering: UNICO Hotel Collection.

RCD Hotels, led by Roberto Chapur, has built a development business around partnerships with international hotel brands. Its relationship with Nobu began with Miami Beach in 2016, followed by Los Cabos in 2019 and Chicago in 2020. That history helps explain why the same owner can appear behind very different names on a hotel map.

In Jamaica, UNICO 18°77° Montego Bay is the UNICO collection’s first project outside Mexico. RCD is also Nobu’s development partner in Punta Cana, where the brand’s current plans call for 200 rooms and suites alongside 50 residences. The common thread is the developer behind the brand, rather than a single flag expanding on its own.

Sandals: a family business investing in family travel

Planned Beaches Runaway Bay, Jamaica. Rendering: Beaches Resorts.

Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart started Sandals in Montego Bay in 1981. His son Adam now serves as executive chairman of Sandals and Beaches Resorts. The family-focused Beaches brand followed in 1997, extending the company’s all-inclusive model beyond couples to parents, children and multigenerational groups.

That family market is central to the group’s next phase. In March 2025, Beaches announced nearly US$1 billion of expansion plans, including new resorts in Barbados, Exuma and Runaway Bay, Jamaica. The programme brings the Stewart family’s regional operating experience to a fresh set of large resort developments.

Grupo Martinón: Canary Islands roots, Caribbean experience

The August 2024 groundbreaking for Punta Bergantín’s public access and Hyatt Zilara hotel. Photo: Presidency of the Dominican Republic.

Grupo Martinón traces its origins to Enrique Martinón Armas’s engineering and construction businesses in Gran Canaria in 1972. The family group helped develop Puerto de Mogán before expanding into the Caribbean, later adding hotels in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Its history includes Dreams Jade in the Riviera Maya and Secrets and Dreams Royal Beach in Punta Cana.

The group is also behind Hyatt development plans at Punta Bergantín on the Dominican Republic’s north coast. It is a familiar model for Martinón: develop the real estate and work with an international hospitality platform on the hotel offering. The projects put a long-established Spanish family investor into one of the Dominican Republic’s newer resort destinations.

Princess: building on its Green Island foothold

Princess Grand Jamaica, part of the existing Green Island resort development. Photo: Princess Hotels & Resorts.

Princess Hotels traces its history to 1967 and built its resort business across Spain, Mexico and the Dominican Republic before moving into Jamaica. Robert Cabrera, identified by Jamaica’s government as an owner of the Green Island development, has been a visible figure in the project’s expansion.

The group’s existing Princess Grand Jamaica and adults-only Princess Senses The Mangrove give it an operating base on the island’s western coast. The next Green Island phase builds on that foothold, making Princess a useful example of an owner expanding a resort destination in stages rather than opening a single isolated hotel.

The Palace Company: two brands for Turks and Caicos

Gibrán Chapur and Premier Washington Misick at the Turks and Caicos development agreement signing. Photo: The Palace Company.

The Palace Company grew from José Chapur’s hotel business in Cancún, where Beach Palace opened in 1984. Moon Palace followed in 1996. Gibrán Chapur became chief executive in April 2025, taking charge of a family business whose portfolio now spans Palace, Moon Palace, Le Blanc and Baglioni.

In August 2025, Gibrán Chapur and the Turks and Caicos government signed a development agreement for Moon Palace The Grand and Le Blanc. The two brands address different guests: Moon Palace is designed for families, while Le Blanc is adults-only. Together, they show how an owner can enter a destination with more than one resort concept.

Where the next wave is taking shape

The Dominican Republic leads with 128 projects, followed by Jamaica and the Bahamas with 38 each. Together, those three markets account for just over half of the report’s entries.

The pipeline spans different stages: 175 projects are in planning or approved, 65 are in pre-construction, 130 are under construction, and 16 are topped out or preparing to open. For suppliers and investors, that timing matters as much as the destination.

The brands behind the pipeline

Marriott appears in 34 entries, Hilton in 24 and Accor in 18. Wyndham and Hyatt each appear in 15, and IHG in 10. These brand relationships sit alongside the ownership story: the company developing and funding a hotel is often different from the name guests see above the door.

Explore the projects, stages, timelines and companies behind the Caribbean pipeline. The full report and accompanying Excel file bring together owners, developers, operators and relevant business contacts. Request the full report below.