Among the qualities we admire most about Tourism Minister Mr Edmund Bartlett are his energy, enthusiasm, and consistent desire to find new avenues for growth in Jamaica’s thriving, multi-billion-dollar visitor industry.

Of late, Mr Bartlett has been especially upbeat about the destination prospects for Jamaica’s most easterly parish, St Thomas, which — largely because of the southern coastal highway now under construction — is a good bet for strong economic growth over the next few years.

Last week he led a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open new and improved road access to the historic Bath Fountain in St Thomas — said to be among the top natural spas in the western hemisphere — and the Bath Botanical Gardens.

As is the case for much of southern and eastern Jamaica, visitor attractions in St Thomas have been hindered by poor road surfaces down the years.

For Mr Bartlett, the Bath facilities represent “signature” attractions and “important assets that can bring a lot more Jamaicans to come and visit, as well as international visitors who will bring foreign exchange into the community”.

According to Dr Michelle Charles, Member of Parliament for St Thomas Eastern, the improved road infrastructure is “a message to the world that we are ready to welcome tourists and provide them with an unforgettable experience”.

The Bath Fountain has a colourful history. Legend has it that the British colonial authorities first learnt about the hot mineral spring in the 1690s when a runaway slave stumbled on it. The latter found that the spring’s sulphuric waters healed wounds and ailments that had plagued him for years. For whatever reason, he chose to return to his master to tell him about it. So the story goes.

St Thomas has other very alluring attractions, not least the spectacular Reggae Falls in Hillside. Mr Bartlett tells us that work to improve access and “spruce up” is also ongoing there.

Worthy of note is his caution regarding “ownership structures” and proper operation.

Said he during a tour of St Thomas last month: “We have to make sure that Reggae Falls remains a public good that is going to be available to all the people of Jamaica and all the visitors of the world who will be invited into the area to ensure that wealth is created and good money is left in Hillside when these visitors come…”

The need for regulation and good order is true of other undeveloped attractions in St Thomas, including beachfront regions such as Pera and Rocky Point in the parish’s east end, which the minister identified as being ripe for development.

The introduction of access roads and so forth are obviously extremely important. But equally, if not more so, must be thorough forward planning and control to ensure new tourist developments are properly, formally structured without undermining the rights of people.

It’s a matter of record that the absence and/or inadequacy of forward planning and the prevalence of disorder led decades ago to the appearance and growth of informal/squatter communities close to some of our more prized tourism assets.

Crime, that natural outgrowth of disorder, followed.

By all means necessary, disorder must be prevented as we look to St Thomas and other relatively untouched rural regions for tourism growth.