In contrast, you had eLong whose CEO Cui Guang Fu is staking its ground on being a pure hotel play.

Right after that came Glenn Fogel, the man behind Priceline’s international growth, who believes in the hedgehog principle – stick to your knitting – and he told the audience, “we concentrate on the hotel area”.

So, using the supermarket analogy, is the future about being a Carrefour (which by the way is closing in Singapore by end of this year) or being one that sells one thing and doing it well?

From the numbers, it would look like the hedgehog is winning globally. The Priceline Group, through its three hotel brands, Priceline, booking.com and Agoda, booked more than 500,000 room nights a day on average during the second quarter of 2012.

Sharing last quarter 2012 results, Fogel said the group  booked approximately 170 million room nights  for the trailing four quarters, and had a compounded annual growth rate of almost50% going back to the beginning of 2005. It’s worth more than US$30 billion in market cap  which is approximately four times larger than Expedia.

So the question is, how fat can a hedgehog grow before it gets eaten by another predator?

For the immediate, Fogel is optimistic about market prospects.

China will be the most important factor in travel growth, he said, predicting that in 10 years, Chinese outbound will be number one in the world. As a destination, it is already the third most important and its importance is underscored by the fact that Accor has introduced a Grand Mercure brand tailored for the Chinese market.

To tap the Chinese market, Priceline has entered into a partnership with Ctrip, something he says he’s pleased with.

Rising energy costs, he also predicted, will not slow travel growth, and he expressed confidence that governments will be smart enough not to put taxes that would hurt travel.

His third prediction – mobile will dominate everything, and “it’s not just using the phone to book a room”.

Check-in by phone, the phone is my key, I don’t have to talk to anyone  (at the hotel) – that’s what he sees happening.

Fourthly, technology improvements will accelerate everything. Big data and cloud computing will enable small companies to compete on an even platform with big brands. The use of fiber optics will accelerate download rates in the world, an important factor in unlocking ecommerce.

New models will disrupt the old. The last two years have seen models like Airbnb and, in China, Airizu, disrupt hospitality. Uber, “everyone’s private driver”, allows people to request pick-up from anywhere anytime. Square allows people’s phones to process credit cards and, for instance, could enable tour leaders to take payments.

So while he believes the future is very bright for online travel, “not everyone will win”.

During question time, Fogel was asked if he was worried about disruption to the Priceline model. He said, “The faster the technology, the easier old models are disrupted. It’s something I worry about all the time. It’s the innovators’ dilemma. Even knowing there will be new models doesn’t mean you will be able to stop them from taking your business.

“Bill Gates in 1995 wrote a memo to all of his executives saying how important the Internet was to the future of Microsoft yet their business was still disrupted.

“One has to continue to be flexible and be willing to consider giving up what is working now but threatened and do something else, because if you don’t do it, someone else will.”

* Glenn Fogel will be speaking at the WIT Conference, Oct 15-17, and opening a session that will feature an all-star OTA panel representing the major online travel brands across Asia. Check programme here.