Our 2012 Caribbean tourism season has begun with the same droll fanfare as when I light a candle during my weekly power cut. Equally as illuminating, I read somewhere the UK is imposing a travel tax on their citizens who would fly to the Caribbees come April.

And as lit candles will, it showed me that the islands might now want to gather their collective limbs about them, pretty much as the prospective bride closes hers in order to secure an unwilling beau's commitment.

Yeh, stop the tourism freebies, make it all harder to get at, make it worth more. But, do not arbitrarily tax back in mindless or uncoordinated retaliation. We'd need help to counter the blow to our tourism traffic of course. Not marriage counselors, but event organisers, skilled business negotiators.

We'd need to make our fuel more expensive if at all possible, We'd need collective planning to offer trans-island stays. That is, disembark at one, depart from another, but only after passing through several during the vacation. So, the Brit tripper gets a grand tour, and the Karibik destination gets the grand total. Granted, each place may get less nights per visitor, but would actually be taking more currency off the individual, and creatively.

Continuing this novel and sweeping reform of our tourism packaging, it would be really cool if our Leeward and Windward cousins get their act going under the Caribbean Tourism Association and do what Caricom heads couldn't with Caricom itself.

They (the CTO) are businessmen fercrissakes, not politicians. Why for example, can't they make a financial clearing house in the Caribbean. Money is an open object for the taking, it's a lucrative product for us to have control over.

Why must our money, our income, be transacted by others abroad with the flagrant autonomy now demonstrated? Make the tourism dollar come here on first bite, and then process it outward . No more Thomas Cook, Amex, VISA and Master Card and offshore banking on our shores, but still weaving built- in trade rule webs to strangle us.

Make them pay higher processing through puts when passing their gains here. They certainly aren't going back home to do it. (oh and guys, imagine then how ably we could process those OTHER funds from below the equator, I'm speaking Ecquadorean tourism revenue natch.)

If I'm talking out of turn, which may well be considering the amount of voices squalking in these dark days of travel, I beg the chance to throw even more light on the situation. We cannot have a scenario where the UK government tax their people for coming here, and we turn around and tax them more while they're here, or when they are leaving. Get it? The 'tax' thing will kill us all. But it could be the way out too. I know, I just said... now hear me out.

We might want to explore all the other options open to us, beside actual taxing . Staying still with the Tobago example and the bridal metaphor; We have the fuel to haggle with if we wanted to squeeze them by the - well 'air'. And we've also got an international carrier to offer alternative fares.

Can Caribbean Airline (CAL) and Air Jamaica say, take a loss come April, whereby the Brit traveller pays the UK government their taxes on departure, but their expense is defrayed down the line by us. Traveller can be reimbursed the equivalent in drinks, meals and other in-flight benefits, or even further on the ground? This would be a great way to enhance our local airlines international competitiveness. It would oust the Brit long haulers Monarch and BA's stranglehold on the Caribbean route, as it may deflower Virgin. And, there's even more cherries for the picking.

There's fresh water to price up quietly, higher supply costs to impose on airline food for the return trip (for the Brit, not for Cal or Air Jam of course). On the ground we can charge for more, or to enable symbiotic and cross-Atlantic hospital facilities aligned with the older Brits needs for when they're here. Give them all services, good old premium priced services.

Why must we have the only free meds and hospital beds in the west? Did I mention Caribbean sex workers too ought to be regularised, covered properly under a CTO admin blanket? I shouldn't mention it? Pardon? Protectionism? Damn right, but since it's only the cost of business and not a tax, it must be OK. Not so old boy?

Remember, no large airline can survive on a domestic route only, so the Brits may cave in when we do this, and therefore drop their proposed April travel tax. If they don't, then the Caribbean tourism organisations, by seeking and implementing such creative ways to diffuse highhanded behavior by the big countries, may lead the way for other Small Island Developing States across the tropical belt to rethink their tourism arrangements with the tax happy north.

Yeh, for sure it will lead to better prenuptial deals in the tourism courtship process, that one-sided thing we have going.

The standard Brit (or even Canadian) excuse for selfish behavior these days is economic security – theirs.

UK PM Cameron said something to the effect that if you are invited to dinner, it's either to sit at the table or to be part of the menu. He's right, and we ought thank him for showing us the way forward with our only communal Caribbean good – the tourism. I say, let's threaten to divorce it from the Brits.

A little separation is good for everyone. And the makeup can be great. Just ask any bride.

email: bertrand@bhikarry.net