Flinders University, Australia
Biography: Lyn Leader-Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Tourism at Flinders University, South Australia. In 2008 she is heading the Professional Studies program at Flinders, and acting as Head of the Humanities Research Centre on Cultural Heritage and Cultural Exchange. Her interests are in the intersections between cultural heritage, tourism and communities, especially on ways in which communities can be actively engaged in planning and decision making. Before she joined the university in 2000 she was executive director of her own consultancy company, which specialised in cultural and heritage tourism and marketing. She was a member of the national steering committee for the project developing Guidelines for Successful Heritage Tourism and joint author of heritage tourism best practice model Tourism with Integrity. She was responsible for the tourism component of the Birdsville/Strzelecki Tracks Heritage and Heritage Tourism Survey, which won an award for heritage management. Since 2001 she has been working with national NGO Regional Arts Australia on a program to build community based cultural organisations in regional areas. This program is now being adapted to work with Indigenous communities in regional and remote Australia. Pilot workshops in several states are being held in 2008 and 2009. Lyn is a former Chair of the South Australian Heritage Committee (a government body) and of the South Australian Tourism Awards Judging panel. She was recently invited to apply for membership of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Cultural Tourism.
