INTRAVEL has acquired group-booking platform 40Hammocks and will relaunch it as Groupr. InteleTravel announced the deal on 6 October 2026 from Delray Beach, Florida. The 40Hammocks technology stays in service while the rebuild runs, and a full-featured relaunch is planned for early 2027.
The purchase adds a block-booking product to a host agency whose advisors sell leisure and business travel. Groupr is being built to take sourcing, contracting and guest management past the volume one planner can carry alone.
What the platform does
40Hammocks serves groups of 10 or more rooms. It secures pre-negotiated hotel rates for a block, creates custom booking links, tracks the block, books event space and adds guest perks. The release names destination weddings and group events as the core business. The 40hammocks.com FAQ describes a hotel block as rooms set aside, "typically starting at ten", at a pre-negotiated rate.
The site lists the group benefits it advertises: lower room rates than online rates, discounted resort and hotel fees, guest perks, loyalty points and a customised booking link. Room-block tracking and reporting sit alongside those.
The work that stays manual
The release sets out the gap Groupr targets. Licensing costs on enterprise group platforms put the smaller-group market out of reach, it states. Meeting planners, wedding planners and travel advisors in that segment still handle sourcing, proposals, negotiations, contracts and follow-up by phone and email. That manual process limits how many groups one planner can manage.
Groupr is being built to automate those five steps end to end. Two further enhancements run through the end of this year, including automated sourcing for restaurant private event space.
Ferrara on the segment
"Enterprise platforms have ignored the smaller-group market for years," said James Ferrara, Chairman of the Board of Groupr and Managing Partner of INTRAVEL. "We saw technology that could solve that, a team that understood the problem, and an opportunity to serve an entire segment of the market that's been underserved, including InteleTravel advisors, and advisors and planners everywhere."
Ferrara placed the purchase inside a run of acquisitions aimed at new markets and AI tools. "Our acquisition strategy has been focused on new markets and powerful new AI solutions like businesstravel.com and now 40Hammocks," he said.
Two audiences at once
Groupr is being developed for an open B2B marketplace of MICE planners, wedding planners and travel advisors, and at the same time for the 145,000 advisors inside the InteleTravel network. The release says the product will be integrated into the existing leisure and business travel platforms those advisors already use.
groupr.travel lists four modules: stay, gather, dine and experience. Those cover hotel sourcing and room blocks, meeting and event space, restaurant reservations and destination activities. The workflow runs inquiry, sourcing, RFP, proposal and contract, with a pipeline view of open RFPs, deposits, rooming lists and block cutoffs.
The team and the timetable
Kim Andreello runs Groupr as Managing Director. The release also names him Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at InteleTravel. The 40Hammocks team has moved across, including co-founders Mina Singson-Brightman and Sebastian Borys, who stay as board members and partners.
"Groupr automates what planners have been doing by hand for decades including sourcing, proposals, contracts, and follow-up," Andreello said. "This means planners can manage more groups, serve their clients better, and build a stronger business off the same effort."
groupr.travel reads "Beta Launching this November" and takes early access sign-ups. The release puts the full-featured relaunch at early 2027.
Two titles the paperwork leaves open
Andreello's title reads Senior Vice President in the release. InteleTravel's own leadership page, live on 21 October 2026, prints Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy and uses that shorter form through the biography.
The co-founder list names two people. The same leadership page credits Andreello with founding and co-founding ventures including 40hammocks. The 2024 Techstars class listing for Atlanta and New Orleans names him as a co-founder alongside Singson-Brightman and Borys. The release names him only as Managing Director of Groupr.
On dating: eHotelier carried the release on 21 October 2026 and kept its "today announced" wording. The announcement date on InteleTravel's own blog is 6 October 2026.
InteleTravel was established in 1991 and describes itself as a host agency with 145,000 independent travel advisors worldwide. Its portfolio includes Hickory Global Partners, MGME, Major Travel, Tickitto and BusinessTravel.com.