However, as traditional institutionalism suggests (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), tourism firms may also take external institutions as given, and decide to, for example, relocate to other resorts to avoid unsuitable institutions, or try to adapt their internal practices to these external conditions (Ma & Hassink, 2013). Thus, different types of relationship exist between firms and institutions and these can affect institutional change in a tourism destination during a crisis. Accordingly, this study focuses on the Spanish crisis and takes evidence from firms with the aim of examining how private actors engage in institutional changes. In particular we analyze the presence and the peculiarities of co-evo-lutionary processes in this context. A better understanding of co-evolution in an economic crisis could shed new light on the role of firms in the evolution of the tourism industry.