When Daniel R. Fesenmaier was working toward his doctorate in geography at the University of Western Ontario, his advisor, Michael F. Goodchild, asked the same question every day: “What have you done to expand the frontiers of knowledge?”

Some 30 years later, Fesenmaier, professor in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management and director of the National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce, is an internationally recognized scholar in the global tourism industry.

A recipient of a 2010 Faculty Research Award, Fesenmaier manages projects in areas of travel and tourism impacted by technology and has conducted research for hundreds of tourism organizations across the world.

Fesenmaier credits his achievements to Goodchild, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the late Robert B. Ditton, formerly of Texas A&M University, for instilling in him a drive to continually celebrate life, to create a vision for the future for his doctoral students and to consider work and home life one in the same.

“Work really wasn’t a relevant concept,” Fesenmaier said. “By working and thinking and writing and doing, we are celebrating life. So life itself and the ideas and research were all intertwined. It was a celebration.”

Fesenmaier has authored more than 100 refereed research articles in top-tier journals, 120 book chapters and conference proceedings, and edited 10 books, monographs and proceedings. He has served as principal or co-principal investigator for more than 100 funded projects totaling $7 million and continues to lead national research that monitors how technology is shaping the ways Americans travel.

Fesenmaier’s colleagues credit him for his strong work ethic and his commitment to using much of the grant money he receives to support the education and research of graduate students, whom he considers his family.

“My success isn’t really the publications I have,” said Fesenmaier, director of research and Ph.D. programs at the School of Tourism. “It’s that I have 200 children and grandchildren that have now taken leadership.”

In addition to receiving Temple’s Faculty Research Award, Fesenmaier was recently named a fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and was the 2010 recipient of the University of Delaware’s Michael D. Olsen Research Achievement Award for outstanding tourism research.

In March, the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management honored Fesenmaier with its 2010 Outstanding Research Award.

“I can’t think of a more fitting tribute than to have him receive one of Temple’s Research Achievement Awards,” said Elizabeth Barber, associate dean of the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management. “Dan is truly exceptional as a researcher, but his attributes as a mentor of students and junior faculty is remarkable. He takes his role very seriously when it comes to his responsibility of giving back to those who follow him.”

Or, in Fesenmaier’s words, “The whole foundation of all of this is really a celebration of life and a built-in responsibility toward society. That’s the whole thing.”