1 Firms’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis in the tourism industry: effects on customer loyalty and economic performance Citation: Francesca Magno & Fabio Cassia (2021) Firms’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis in the tourism industry: effects on customer loyalty and economic performance, Anatolia, DOI: 10.1080/13032917.2021.1916551 Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13032917.2021.1916551 Introduction Tourism firms have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis as a result of lockdowns and strict health regulations imposed by national authorities (Kreiner & Ram, 2020). As the tourism industry has started to gradually reopen, tourism firms have been applying a wide array of responses, ranging from compliance with health measures to innovating their services, adopting new technologies and searching for new customer segments (Alonso et al., 2020). Some studies have addressed firms’ resilience and begun identifying the strategies adopted by tourism and hospitality firms to cope with the COVID-19 crisis (Breier et al., 2021; Kaushal & Srivastava, 2020; Lai & Wong, 2020). However, evidence about the effects of different types of responses on firm performance is still lacking. This study aims to provide a first assessment of the effects of three groups of responses to the COVID-19 crisis – marketing, cost cutting and organizational changes – on customer loyalty and economic performance. In particular, this study proposes a model employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of agritourism firms. Methodology A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among a sample of agritourism firms in Italy during October–November 2020. In Italy, there are 24,576 agritourism businesses (Istat – Italian National Institute of Statistics, 2020). Based on geographical sampling, 1,020 of these businesses were invited to participate in our research, and 208 completed the questionnaire (response rate: 20.3%). Almost