GBTA | Texas May 2026 Monthly Meeting

please join us on

Thursday, May 7th, 2026
11:00am - 1:00pm

for the Monthly GBTA Texas meeting!

Are mega mergers across airlines, hotel groups, GDSs, and travel technology firms reshaping the market by concentrated control over content distribution and data access into fewer hands?  While consolidation can drive scale and innovation, it often blurs the distinction between unbiased content and commercially influenced offerings, making it harder for stakeholders to understand what content they are seeing—and what may be missing.  

Join Gold Spring Consulting Partner, Neil Hammond lead panel experts Brett Dowling, VP of Revenue for North America at Serko, and Steven van Overmeiren, Garner Associates Consultant in a discussion focused on how industry consolidation is changing the realities of travel content, increasing complexity, and redefining transparency, trust, and value in managed travel programs.

Moderator:

Neil Hammond, Partner at GoldSpring Consulting 

Neil Hammond has over 20 years' experience in the travel industry as a buyer and consultant. Neil started his career with Schlumberger and has worked in the United Kingdom, France and the USA whilst traveling extensively during his career. Neil held various roles in Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality Assurance supplying oilfield equipment to the field locations before becoming Global Travel Manager for Schlumberger where he implemented the $360 million travel program in 40 countries. After leaving Schlumberger, Neil joined Advito as Director leading a team of professional consultants engaged in Air and Hotel sourcing projects to corporate clients. In 2013 Neil founded SmartKapps (now acquired by GoldSpring Consulting) and developed technology to support sourcing projects for Corporate Air and Hotel with a focus on streamlining the process for corporate buyers. Air Sourcing Manager ™ and Hotel Optimization Manager ™, enable Gold Spring’s consultants to manage sourcing projects and handle all the complexities of airline and hotel sourcing engagements in a more efficient manner with reduced project timescales. Neil joined Gold Spring Consulting in 2014 as partner because he believed that the vision and opportunity created by the founders would be a perfect fit with the technology developed by SmartKapps. Neil was also impressed with the professionalism and integrity of the Colleen, Mark and Will having worked with all them in previous roles. Neil has also conducted independent travel consulting projects and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Salford University

Speakers:

Brett Dowling, Vice President of Revenue for North America at Serko

Brett Dowling leads commercial execution and customer success outcomes across the company’s product portfolio. A seasoned travel tech leader with eight years of industry experience, Brett notably orchestrated the divestiture of GetThere from Sabre to Serko, ensuring a seamless transition and integration. Prior to his leadership roles at Sabre, Brett was a serial entrepreneur, most recently founding Tixsee, a pioneering fan experience platform for professional sports teams and venues. This unique background blends startup agility with enterprise expertise, driving strategic innovation within the North American travel market.

Steven Van Overmeiren, Consultant at Garner Associates

 As a former corporate travel leader for global giants in the technology and legal services sectors, Steven spent years navigating the friction between legacy systems and modern business needs. Now, as a consultant at Garner, Steven helps organizations dismantle the legacy, one-size-fits-all approach to build agile, multi-layered programs that integrate travel, meetings, expense, and payment. A vocal advocate for industry modernization, Steven is known for challenging the status quo and helping leaders think differently about what programs can achieve in an AI-first world.

Hank Benedetti, Chief Commercial Officer of Blockskye

Hank Benedetti is the Chief Commercial Officer of Blockskye, a company focused on transforming the technology that powers the business travel industry through the use of blockchain and artificial intelligence.  In his role, Hank is responsible for sales, marketing, communications and industry partnerships. Previous to Blockskye, he concluded a successful career as American Airlines Global Head of Corporate Sales.  In this role, he led American’s sales efforts worldwide for all major customer and distributor segments including Global/Fortune 100, Small/Medium Business and Global Retail travel agencies. Prior to this role, Hank led the team responsible for negotiating joint selling agreements with American’s various global airline partners including British Airways, Japan Airlines and Qantas. Hank’s contributions to the travel industry were recognized by being awarded the Global Business Travel Association’s Supplier Member of the Year, a distinction awarded to only two other airline executives.  He has served on numerous industry advisory boards and been a featured speaker at industry conferences in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

 You can learn more about Hank by visiting his LinkedIn profile

Venue Host:

Hyatt House The Woodlands/Shenandoah

18645 Residence Drive 
Shenandoah, TX 77385

Parking: Self-Parking Complimentary

Feel free to reach out to Felicia Graham, Vice-President Allied, at meeting[email protected] with any questions or if you need to make changes to your existing registration. Registration for the meeting will close when full or on Monday, May 4th, 2026, at 5:00pm CST.

 *Please be advised that photographs and video will be taken during the above event which may be posted on our website, social media or news outlets. *