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He said, “People talk about the fox and the hedgehog – the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one thing. We know one thing – hotels – and that’s not changing in the foreseeable future.”
From the numbers, it would look like the hedgehog is winning globally. The Priceline Group, through its three hotel brands, Priceline, booking.com andAgoda, booked more than 500,000 room nights a day on average during the second quarter of 2012.
The group booked approximately 170 million room nights for the trailing four quarters, and had a compounded annual growth rate of almost 50% 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 much fatter can a hedgehog grow? And could it be eaten by a predator?
These are the questions that will be addressed in the conversation WIT’s Yeoh Siew Hoon will have with Fogel at WIT 2012. Making his first appearance at our event, the Head of Worldwide Strategy and Planning and Executive Vice President – Corporate Development of Priceline Group will share his views on growth, innovation, disruption and future disintermediation.
Fogel will be followed by a one-on-one with Yoshihisa Yamada, Senior Executive Officer & Director, Rakuten Inc; Vice Chairman, Rakuten Travel Inc; President, Rakuten Edy Inc. Also making his first appearance at WIT, Yamada will talk about the Japanese ecommerce giant’s plans to expand globally with its strategic acquisitions and, in particular, its focus on travel and Asia, and its mobile payment system, Edy.
The interview will be followed by an all-star panel featuring online travel players from across Asia Pacific as each vie to find their place in an increasingly competitive and dynamic market.
As Fogel says, the future is bright but “not everyone will win.”
Also featuring:
Yoshihisa Yamada, Senior Executive Officer & Director, Rakuten Inc; Vice Chairman, Rakuten Travel Inc; President, Rakuten Edy Inc
Amit Saberwal, Chief Business Officer-International Markets, MakeMyTrip, India
Dhruv Shringi, CEO, Yatra, India
Rod Cuthbert, Interim Chairman, Rome2Rio
Scott Blume, CEO, RajaKamar, Indonesia
