RAY B. JOHNSTON, JR.(JOHNNY)
Director of Marketing

Johnny Johnston has spent twenty-five years in the hotel industry, specializing in marketing and sales, during which he developed the strategic tools of hospitality market research/analysis, management motivation and training, advertising and public relations. He joined The Peabody Orlando as director of marketing on March 4, 2002 following fifteen years with Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites, and ten years with Hilton International.

Johnston was born with a silver hotel key in his hand. His parents owned and operated a 40-room motel in Myrtle Beach, SC, where he learned the basics from back-of-the-house to front office.

A native of Myrtle Beach, SC, Johnston is a journalism graduate of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. In 1974 while working his way through college, he found his way into his first hotel job with a major hotel chain, Hilton Hotels International where he began to learn the ways of the national hospitality business. As he progressed through college, his advertising and public relations studies began to steer him in the direction of hospitality sales and marketing, which he has purposefully pursued in the ensuing years with great success.

Following a decade with Hilton Hotels International, Johnston joined Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites in 1984 as a pre-opening sales manager for the Marriott's Orlando World Center and was appointed director of association sales. In 1987 he changed coasts for the Marriott's Desert Springs Resort and Spa in California, and two years later, journeyed westward yet again to the Maui Marriott Resort. In 1991, he returned to San Francisco where he was director of marketing for the San Francisco Airport Marriot; then to Marriott's Seaview Resort and Country Club, just outside Atlantic City, N.J., Marriott's Tan-Tar-A Resort, Golf Club & Spa, at the Lake of the Ozarks, and finally to the Marco Island Marriott Resort and Golf Club, Florida, where he remained for three years.

Johnston's multi-award winning marketing and sales techniques are firmly based in research and analysis applied to the development of strategic plans and campaigns, which resulted in positive shifts in the transient mix of his various properties, generating substantial sales, profit and room night growth.

Paramount to Johnston's marketing techniques is his dedication to team development and motivation, and the creation of "spirited" teams working in harmony and producing great results. His life-long experience in the industry gives him an in-depth understanding of the business and an ability to create and build strong, productive teams.

Johnston is married with three children, Christian, Cameron and Madison. The family pets range from a cat named after Bill O'Reilly to an over-friendly 100-lb black Lab, all of whom are in process of relocating to the Orlando area.

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