Dianne is Founder of The Tourism CoLab and is Co-founder and Co-Director of Designing Tourism. Dianne is an experienced community engagement specialist, environmental planner and tourism policy researcher and is an internationally recognised thought leader in tourism. She has spent most of her 30 year career in the spaces between environmental planning, research, education, policy, community development, innovation, entrepreneurship and business activation. 

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Dianne has worked with Australian federal, state, and local governments and tourism organisations, preparing destination management plans, stakeholder audits, community and industry engagement. She has experience in Environmental Impact Assessment and land use strategy, and is deeply committed to innovative community engagement approaches.

 

Dianne has provided policy research and advice to both the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Her contributions include advice on diverse issues including tourism Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) and digitalisation, collaborative/sharing economy policy, the blue economy, SME capacity building and policy complementarities.

 

She has held professorships at three Australian Universities, and two international guest professorships (Lund University, Sweden and Royal Roads University, Canada). She has published 8 books, over 200 research papers, and has lived and worked in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Europe. Dianne is deeply committed to coaching and mentoring the next generation of innovative thought leaders and change makers in the Tourism CoLab. It's for the future.