Newsmaker: Hyatt's Lavin Moves To Doubletree Hotels

Doubletree Hotels Corp. has lured 17-year Hyatt veteran and Association of Corporate Travel Executives officer John Lavin to its vice president-national sales post.

Lavin, who most recently oversaw Hyatt's sales and marketing efforts to the travel industry, will manage the operations, budgets, goals and personnel of Doubletree's national sales offices.

"It was time for John to move to the next level," said Doubletree executive vice president of sales and marketing Tom Storey.

Storey, who described Lavin as "solid, sincere, hardworking and humble," said Doubletree was drawn to Lavin's knowledge of the transient market and its various support systems-dealing with corporations and agencies, the request for proposal process and the system-support element.

"John knows all of those things inside and out," Storey said. "He has experience on the operating side of the business as well, which creates a lot of credibility in the field."

Lavin, 40, will retain his Chicago base in the near term but most likely will move his family of six to the chain's Phoenix headquarters, Storey said.

Lavin joined Hyatt in 1979 as a management trainee in Dallas and has since held a myriad of positions, including director of sales, divisional director of sales for Hawaii hotels and corporate director of individual sales. An ACTE leader for several years, Lavin currently serves as vice president of education for the association.

Lavin replaces Jack Ferguson, who was promoted to head Doubletree's distribution management arena, overseeing national sales, electronic sales and reservations.

A Hyatt spokeswoman said the company is scouting to fill Lavin's former position of assistant vice president of individual travel.