Focus groups have been used extensively in hospitality and tourism research to study a diverse range of topics including women’s accommodation experiences, mobile augmented reality, and healthy eating while traveling ( Chang, 2017 Khoo-Lattimore & Gibson, 2018 tom Dieck & Jung, 2018). Contrasted with a one-on-one interview, the interactions between focus group participants tend to add emotion, breadth and depth to the discussion ( Gammie et al., 2017 Kitzinger, 1994, 1995). By exchanging stories, sharing personal experiences and offering different points of view focus group participants add value to the discussion by exposing their likes and dislikes, wants and needs, and thoughts and suggestions.

Researchers value focus groups as a kind of group interview that encourages discussion among participants. Opportunities and challenges are discussed to assist researchers in ensuring a rigorous methodology with valid findings.

This paper provides an overview of the differences between focus group types and outlines potential online platform options before using Reddit as a case study to explore how researchers can effectively conduct an online focus group. A forum (i.e., contribution place) must be created, participants must be invited and provided instructions, and the discussion must be overseen by a moderator and monitored. Many of the same fundamental guidelines to conducting an in-person focus group also apply in an online environment. As individuals are locked down or choose to remain at home, videoconferencing (e.g., Zoom) and online text-based communication (e.g., Slack) have seen explosive growth ( Kominers et al., 2020).įor researchers desiring to take advantage of the benefits of online focus groups it is important to understand how online platforms that support text-based communication can help facilitate data collection.

Beyond participant preference, in an uncertain future where the threat of pandemics could limit face-to-face research for health and safety reasons, the ability to conduct data collection online becomes even more important ( Parry, 2020). By conducting focus groups online participants can contribute whenever and wherever they prefer with the ability to remain anonymous minimizing the fear of judgment ( Daniels et al., 2019 Wilkerson et al., 2014). Annually firms spend over $1 billion on online qualitative data collection ( ESOMAR, 2018). Over the past decade online qualitative data collection has grown tremendously, offering researchers the ability to conduct research more quickly and easily.

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