Going by the numbers alone, it makes absolute sense for the Government to target the health and wellness tourism market.

Eminent Jamaican doctors Henry Lowe, Guyan Arscott and Winston Davidson told this newspaper last week that the health and wellness market is valued at US$3 trillion.

Based on our own short research, that could be a conservative figure. Data published from travel advisor service Virtuoso tell us that travellers take 586 million wellness trips each year. In addition, wellness travellers spend more than the average traveller by 130 per cent.

According to the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), the spend in this industry in the United States alone is an estimated US$202 billion annually when inbound and domestic tourism are combined.

The institute notes that China is showing the fastest growth in this industry with combined domestic and international revenues climbing to US$30 billion between 2013 and 2015.

“The Chinese consumer’s appetite for wellness-focused travel is huge and growing,” states the GWI website, which also lists the other top wellness tourism destinations as Germany (US$60 billion), France (US$30 billion), Austria (US$15 billion), Canada (US$14 billion), and the United Kingdom ($13 billion).

A new study by the German Economic Institute for Tourism at the University of Munich tells us that Bavarian health and wellness tourism is flourishing.

According to the study, wellness tourism in Bavaria brings in annual revenue of 4.5 billion euros with spas accounting for 58 per cent of local tourism revenue.

Of course, there are other countries that have developed spas and spa towns as attractions as the number of travellers who are paying greater attention to their health grows.

Dr Arscott, who sits on the Government-appointed Health and Wellness Network Committee, which is chaired by Dr Lowe, told us last week that not many countries are blessed with spas that have the potency of Jamaica’s mineral baths. In fact, Jamaica, he said, is probably in the top five or the top three worldwide.

However, Dr Arscott noted that Jamaica’s intention to capture its fair share of the health and wellness tourism market is being hobbled by poor infrastructure.

We recall that in 2015 the then Government allotted $50 million for a rehabilitation project at the Milk River Bath and Spa in Clarendon. But that, we have learnt, just brushed the surface of what needs to be done there.

As it now stands, Milk River, and Bath in St Thomas, need heavy investment in order to upgrade them to the point where health and wellness visitors will flock the island.

Both facilities hold tremendous earning potential for the country, and more Jamaicans could benefit from their spin-off effects if we go the route, as the Health and Wellness Network Committee is thinking, of developing spa towns around these spas.

This is not something on which the State bureaucrats should drag their feet. We need to get it going quickly and, as Dr Lowe pointed out, ensure that international standards are met.

Jamaica should not miss out on this opportunity.