This past week, the Riu Group, a Spanish leisure and travel company, began to remove the fourth floor from one of the buildings of a hotel being constructed at Mahoe Bay, on Jamaica's northwest coast, in order to comply with the country's building regulations.

The hotel is in the flight path of Montego Bay's Sangster airport and the offending structure apparently exceeded the height limit established by the island's civil aviation authorities for buildings in the vicinity. There has been much controversy if, and how, Riu received permits allowing it to construct the building and over other alleged breaches at the site.

Coincidentally, much of the controversy over Riu and the wider issue of the slew of investment by Spanish firms in Jamaica's tourism sector during this decade, sizzled, as Edmund Bartlett, the tourism minister, prepared for his participation in Parliament's annual debate on the state of the economy.

Feeling disenchanted

Mr Bartlett rejected suggestions that Spanish firms, believing that they are being picked on, have grown disenchanted with Jamaica's investment climate, to the point one firm has put on hold a major project.

The tourism minister may have been correct in the specifics, that the company in question may have delayed its development for economic reasons. But as Mr Bartlett is aware, business confidence is not often the result of a single or specific issue; it is mostly a creeping intangible. And hardly would Mr Bartlett or anyone deny that there has been a growing unease, if not outright resentment, of the Spanish entry into Jamaica, which has been given added weight by whatever may have been their alleged failings on environmental issues and adherence to Jamaican laws.

To be absolutely clear, this newspaper insists upon adherence to Jamaica's laws, rules and regulations by all persons and corporations, no matter their origins. So, ensuring that Riu is in compliance, is not an issue.

We think that this unease about the Spanish is not a narrow anti-foreigner matter or the product of government action, but is wound up in more complex issues of competition and the longer-term direction of an important sector of the Jamaican economy. Indeed, it points to the need for a broader and more fundamental debate, which Mr Bartlett had an opportunity to frame, but missed during his parliamentary presentation.

Choosing a market

The question that the government, investors in the industry and the wider Jamaica need to pose and answer is: What type of tourism does the country want and how, and who, will be allowed to play? The fact is, the world - and Jamaica - has changed substantially since this island's early foray into big-business tourism. And it is not clear to us that Jamaica, either psychologically or strategically, has defined which rung it can reasonably occupy on the global tourism ladder.

Mr Bartlett told Parliament that the tourism master plan developed in the earlier part of the decade is to be reviewed, the industry having surpassed some targets but failing to achieve others. That review must include debate on a philosophical and strategic frame within which we place tourism, lest we find ourselves overcome by jingoism.