In 2000, Scott Harness built CoachQuote — the first online marketplace for group charter transportation, before “marketplace” was a word anyone used. In 2004 came Group Travel Planet, automating group hotel sourcing when fax machines still ruled hotel sales desks. In 2007 he founded GroupAbout the first time — the right idea, a decade and a half early.
The pattern across all three: the booking was never the hard part. The group was the hard part. Getting eight people from “we should do this” to paid-and-packed is a coordination problem, a money problem, and a courage problem — and no amount of hotel inventory fixes it.
What changed in 2026: hotels became AI-native and can answer a 5-room brief in minutes. Agentic booking rails went live. And AI got good enough to mediate a group chat without being annoying. The gap between the idea and the infrastructure finally closed. GroupAbout is the company Scott has been trying to build since 2000 — now the world is ready for it.
Group charter marketplace — the category’s first.
Automated group hotel sourcing, pre-OTA-era.
The right idea, fifteen years early.
The group formation engine. The tech caught up.
“Every tool in this industry optimizes the booking. The trip dying in the group chat was always the real problem — and 2026 is the first year the technology can finally fix it.”
— Scott Harness, Founder