After bouts in the ring, a bout of flu caused an about turn in fortune for Blair Speers. With not enough money in his pocket to leave Thailand, he headed back to his rented house, away from the airport, and away from the bread line in the place he once called home.

Today this motivated and driven young man sits, literally, on top of his empire. His modest but tasteful office is situated at the head of a tight, metal, spiral staircase. He shares this office with partner and long standing friend Stephen Baxter, who kick-started Blair into business.

A national champion wrestler born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, he originally trained to be a high school teacher specialising in physical education and mathematics. After qualifying, he accepted a job in a local high school where he was going to coach wrestling and teach mathematics. The staff room of this high school is where he arrived at his first turning point.

"I was a young, fresh teacher not much older than the kids I was going to teach. I had arrived early in the staff room and was drinking my first cup of coffee. The door opened, and in walked teachers from the school, none of whom seemed less than 120 years old." Horrified, he visualised himself in the same job doing the same thing 60 years later, and he immediately resigned from his position at the school.

"I had a cousin, Cory, out here in Phuket teaching at a local international school, so I came out here for a holiday break," he said. "Prior to this I had never heard of Phuket.

"Eventually though, after a few months, I ran out of money and was at the end of my return ticket validation, so I had to go back to Canada," Blair continued. "I was going back to face student loans that I'd left behind and large payments on a well-used credit card. I arrived at the airport with 250 baht in my pocket. I bought a drink and then went to check in. There I realised that the airport tax was more than I had in my pocket. There was nothing for it. I had to beg or go back. I only just had enough to get a taxi back to the house!"

On his return to the house Blair experienced his second turning point. As he approached his drive he noticed a snake which raised its head to strike as he came near, but instead of attacking, it gently lowered its head and slid away.

Taking this as a sign of acceptance, Blair set about trying to find a way of earning an income. Fortunately, several relatively wealthy Korean families living in the same village had already asked him for English lessons for their children. He decided that this was the way to go. Within a short space of time, he was earning more than he could have earned back in Canada. A few months later, he had the money to rent small premises and bring some teacher friends over from Canada to help him run a school.

Seeing the success of the school, the landlords promptly trebled the rent. Blair objected and left. Finding it difficult to operate surreptitiously, he agreed to a deal with local schools to take on his staff and give him commission. Predictably, his staff were not paid what they were promised, and he did not have the heart to take any commission.

"I was broke again. This was a particularly bad period. I had met my partner Malee, and we rented a small house together. She had started doing laundry as a way of helping make ends meet, but it wasn't long before my motorbike was repossessed."

His father had introduced him to his first computer when he was very young, so he had always been surrounded by computers. With his friends, he had become quite involved in writing simple software. A neighbour of his was quite high in military computer intelligence, so Blair was often exposed to some information technology that was breaking ground at that time. This fuelled his interest as well as his knowledge, and later on it would prove to be extremely useful.

"We ran a very successful pre-internet bulletin board system," he said.

Bill Main, a good friend at that time, was one of the heads of a new company in Phuket called Planet Holiday, which sold travel accommodation online. Knowing that Blair had a good knowledge of computing, he offered him a job helping to develop the reservation system as well as handling reservations.

Blair worked the night shift (almost all online purchases at that time were from the United States) and was soon heavily embroiled in the business working as many hours a day as he possibly could. This was not only to feed and clothe his newborn son, James, but also because he loved the work. The contacts and knowledge he gained during this time were to stand him in good stead later on. The company prospered as they utilized his knowledge, skills and vision.

"On Christmas day 1999 I began to feel ill. Over the next few days I got worse, and it was apparent that I was having a serious bout of flu," he said."A newly appointed general manager at Planet Holiday, who I had hardly even met ... phoned me and told me that I could not go back to work until I had a doctor's note clearing me. I felt terribly upset and very unappreciated."

It was at this point that Blair received a phone call that was to change his life. An old acquaintance, Stephen Baxter, called to wish him Merry Christmas and to see how he was feeling. Blair mentioned how disgruntled he was. Stephen asked him what he would need to start his own business.

"I said a salary of 30,000 baht a month and 2 computers," Blair explained. That was the start of HotelTravel.com.

By March 2000, they had registered the company and by July they had had their first customer. Today they achieve about 150,000 unique visitors to their site everyday and look to employ 20 new workers every month. Blair is conscious that the competition is growing and is keen that HotelTravel.com stays near the front--where it belongs.

"They may be bigger, but we're better," he said.

In Phuket, the company now employs people from over 25 countries speaking more than 15 languages, working three shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. HotelTravel.com covers every major travel destination on the planet, booking and servicing customers from more than 100 countries, in 8 core languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. This year, HotelTravel.com expects to service over 220 million dollars in room requests.

He is the driving force behind the success of HotelTravel.com, but he credits his chief technical officer and other partner Graham Johnson for providing today's cutting edge technology. His business acumen comes from his mother, who ran a successful cosmetics company in Canada.

His methodology is almost unique on Phuket. He expects every one of his family of 250 or so employees to push to better themselves. He achieves this with a great human resources team, careful selection, assessed probation periods, comprehensive training programmes, better wages than anywhere on the island, and a monthly profit-sharing bonus.

There is no doubt that he cares passionately about the company. He also cares for his staff and has almost no turn-over of employees. Once hired, they stay. His passion too for Phuket is obvious to all around him. He is keen to support events all over the island when he can. The Phuket International Blues Rock Festival is just one of the many.

It's appropriate then that a man so driven should choose to relax by indulging in the one sport where players constantly compete against and push themselves rather than an opponent: golf. As I left him, Blair Speers was contemplating sneaking off to play 18 holes.

HotelTravel.com is now an international company incorporated in 11 countries, with operations similar to Phuket in Malaysia where HotelTravel.com International Ltd. is incorporated and in Beijing, China, which is gearing up for the 2008 Olympics.

HotelTravel.com has certainly grown into a global and truly international company, but Phuket is where Blair chooses to live.

"This is truly my home," he said."I love Phuket. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world."