The current COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically hit the worldwide tourism and hospitality industry. In this context firms are experimenting strategies to counteract the decline in demand. Previous research has examined the varied impacts of different strategies adopted by tourism and hospitality firms in times of crisis. Available analyses have distinguished between reactive and proactive strategies (Pun, 2005). Reactive strategies aim to defend the market position through initiatives such as cutting costs or divesting activities that are not part of the core business. Proactive strategies are mainly focused on innovation and marketing (Alonso-Almeida et al., 2015). Differently from “normal” situations when proactive strategies are more effective than reactive strategies (Bremser et al., 2018; Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005), results about the effectiveness of these strategies in time of crisis are mixed. In this study we focus on the strategies adopted by agritourism firms to address the drop in demand caused by COVID-19.

This paper aims to explain the link between proactive and reactive strategies adopted during the pandemic and the performance of agritourism firms. The success of agritourism firms depends on their ability to balance “economic performance and the sustainability of sociocultural and environmental values” (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000, p.379). We suggest a model in which sustainability (related to products, employees, environment, community and heritage (Wang et al., 2019)) mediates the relationships between strategies and performance, by enabling visitor engagement and co-creation.

This study adopts a cross-sectional research design. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among a sample of Italian agritourism firms. In Italy, only hospitality activities that are based on a working farm can be defined as agritourism firms and revenues from agricultural activities must prevail over revenues from agritourism activities (Italian law 96/2006). This strong link between agricultural and agritourism activities emphasizes the role of sustainability. Up to now, 98 questionnaires have been returned. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is being used for data analysis. This method is consistent with the predictive nature of this research.

The results highlight the mediating role of sustainability in explaining the relationships between proactive and reactive strategies and firm performance. Hence, to have a positive effect on performance, the strategies adopted by agritourism firms must first contribute to sustainability (products, employees, environment, community and heritage).

Agritourism firms have been indicated as showing higher resilience during the ongoing pandemic compared with other types of hospitality firms. The results of this study suggest that their performance is rooted in their multifaceted sustainability which enables visitor engagement and successful value co-creation.

The results contribute to advance knowledge about the effects of the strategies adopted by hospitality firms to counteract the impacts of the ongoing crisis. They also indicate that noneconomic performance (sustainability, quality of life of the communities, etc.) is central to economic performance (Fu et al., 2019). This study is strictly related to the research context: in other countries agritourism firms do not have necessarily to be based on a working farm and the role of sustainability may be different.

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