By the Caribbean Journal staff

One of Marriott’s hottest hotel brands is coming to the Caribbean.

The luxury boutique brand that was the brainchild of legendary hotelier Ian Schrager will be coming to the Caribbean coast of Mexico.

Marriott has signed a deal for an Edition to be set in the Kanai luxury community in the heart of the Riviera Maya, the first-ever Edition brand property in the wider region.

Kanai, years in development, will eventually be home to four hotels and a beach club on a 183-hectare oceanfront site.

It’s been pegged as the home of a planned “retreat” designed by famed architectural firm Richard Meier & Partners, although it’s unclear if that will be the Edition project.

Several hotel brands have been rumored at one point or another to debut in Kanai, from W to St Regis (both of which are former Starwood brands now part of the Marriott umbrella), but Edition will now be the first.

The new Edition is part of a wider luxury pipeline in Mexico that includes Zadun, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, slated to debut later this year in Los Cabos.

It’s part of a wider expansion in Mexico’s luxury market for Marriott, with 1,000 luxury-segment rooms in its pipeline across nine properties in the country.

That includes a planned Ritz-Carlton Reserve resort set to open in Mexico later this year called Zadun.

Another Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Mexico is also in the pipeline, a 110-room resort in the Costa Canuva development on the Riviera Nayarit.

“Mexico continues to be our biggest and most successful market in the region, thanks to our proven operating excellence, preferred brands and business platforms, and strong owner and franchise partnerships,” said Laurent de Kousemaeker, Chief Development Officer for Marriott International in the Caribbean and Latin America. “We are equally enthusiastic about 2019, given our strong pipeline, the launch of Marriott Bonvoy – the company’s new loyalty program – and the increasingly compelling value proposition that our size and scale can bring to our partners.”