Marijuana businesses have long affirmed that cannabis is drawing out of towners to Colorado.
Research commissioned by the Colorado Tourism Office and presented to the office’s board of directors on Wednesday displays legal marijuana as a growing motivator for trips to Colorado – conflicting with the mantra of tourism officials statewide say that creative marketing alone is responsible for record visitation and spending in the last two years.
Only 8 percent of the Colorado tourists who responded to the survey said they visited a marijuana dispensary.
“I think definitely the laws are having an influence when people are considering Colorado. We can see that it’s still not a large percentage in terms of what people are doing, but it’s become more of a motivator for those who want to do it,” stated Denise Miller, director of tourism surveys for Strategic Marketing and Research Insights, or SMARI, as she presented the midyear update to the tourism office’s board of directors.
22 percent of survey respondents said marijuana was “Extremely influential” in their decision to visit Colorado.
Twenty percent said it was “Very much influential” and nearly 7 percent said it was “Somewhat influential.” Yet only 8 percent of tourists stated they visited a marijuana shop during their trip to Colorado – the same percentage who stated they visited a marijuana shop last year, in reference to SMARI’s survey.
This past year- the first year SMARI asked marijuana questions to potential Colorado vacationers – 65 percent of Colorado visitors did not think about legal weed in their vacation decision, with the remainder split between respondents saying they were “More likely to visit” and “Less likely to visit” because of marijuana.
The question in SMARI’s summer survey asked: “How much did the legalization of marijuana usage influence your decision to visit Colorado?” SMARI’s Miller stated her team needs to follow up with better questions.
“Marginally, yes, I think it may be a decision influencer for some people coming.” Marijuana is no longer in the margins of Colorado tourism.
State officials state they have never marketed marijuana because Amendment 64 regulations prohibit marijuana businesses from advertising outside Colorado.
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1 comment
Many more people come to Colorado for the cannabis than the CTO would care to admit. The reason for the low survey numbers is many of these folks come from places where this substance is still illegal and so they are reluctant to admit use. But as a bud tender, I’ve heard many, MANY comments from people who have come for a visit then decided to relocate here for the sake of our liberal marijuana laws.
To them and other people who are thinking of coming for a visit based on cannabis I’d say, as a Colorado born native:
Welcome to Colorful Colorado! Please feel free to spend your tourist dollars. Hike, fish, ski and enjoy our beautiful mountains and wide open spaces. If you’d care to partake of our world class cannabis strains, then by all means do so.
Then, GO HOME. GET OUT. Do not even think of settling here. The last thing we need or want is more transplants overcrowding our environment, ruining our quality of life and clogging our infrastructure with stoned drivers, all for the sake of legal weed.
If it’s legal cannabis you crave, then stay home and work towards making it legal in your own state. We did, you can too.