Original Coverage & Source Attribution: jamaica-gleaner.com
Nick Curtis began by managing one villa in Aruba during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the co-founder and CEO of Bocobay runs a vacation-rental company with about 400 homes in four countries, and he says it could be operating in seven islands, including Jamaica.
“Given 18 months, we could be in, call it, a total of seven islands,” he said.
Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are now Bocobay’s main expansion targets. Curtis said the company has doubled in size every year for the past five years and is looking at additional Jamaican parishes alongside entry into other Caribbean markets. He expects to add between 60 and 80 people over the next 12 months, including operations managers who will work under its local hospitality management structure.
The latest step is The Azure in Discovery Bay, St Ann, a six-storey, 43-unit oceanfront development that Bocobay is taking on to manage.
KeFordco Ltd is led by investment banker Leacroft Forden and architect Corey Robinson. The development is expected to be ready for the 2026-2027 winter tourist season, with more than 30 units nearly ready for occupation. Curtis said it will be run along the lines of a four-star resort, extending a model already introduced at the Palm Beach development in Runaway Bay.
“We’re going to come in and we’re going to operate it like a resort,” Curtis told the Financial Gleaner.
Azure will have a central front desk and permanent staff, with a grill, café and rooftop bar. Bocobay is also in talks with the management of Puerto Seco Beach for Azure guests to have membership access.
Curtis and his brother, James, started the company after relocating to Aruba during the pandemic. “We started in a really humble way,” Curtis said. The first property was Tree Tops Villa, which they managed for a private homeowner. Business from a neighbouring property followed, growing into a portfolio of roughly 400 homes across Aruba, Curaçao, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Bocobay says it is tracking about US$50 million in annualised gross booking value.
Its model sits between conventional property management and hotel operations. Bocobay earns a 25 per cent commission on rental bookings, covering management and online marketing, rather than separate flat fees.
“We only charge fees when we’re actually getting you bookings and occupancy,” Curtis said.
At Palm Beach, where Bocobay began a soft launch earlier this year, it manages 22 villas and six luxury condos. Curtis positions the offering as five-star, with a designated butler, chef and housekeeper for villa guests. The company also screens guests, including those from online platforms, using identification and background-check systems.
“Only last month we cancelled a relatively large booking across a couple of properties for exactly that kind of reason,” he said.
Curtis and James were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2026 list in April, in the Retail & E-commerce category, according to a company press release. The brothers founded Bocobay in 2020 to bring a hotel-quality management model to the fragmented Caribbean villa-rental market. Curtis founded the London-headquartered company after graduating from Oxford with a mathematics degree.
