As Colorado nears its second anniversary of legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, nearly half of all tourists surveyed recently said the state’s lax pot laws factored into their recent decisions to visit.
The Colorado Tourism Office presented the results of a new poll to the office’s board of directors on Wednesday, the Denver Post reported, and their findings suggested that an overwhelming number of out-of-towners have taken note of the Centennial State’s marijuana laws.
Nearly 49 percent of individuals surveyed by the tourism office in October and November who had seen the state’s recent “Come to Life” ad campaign told the tourism bureau that pot laws influenced their decision to vacation in Colorado this summer.
Despite carrying a hefty $5.3 million price tag, that campaign never once touted the fact that adults have been able to legally purchase and possess marijuana in Colorado since January 2014. Nevertheless, nearly half of the people who vacationed in Colorado between April and September this year and saw those ads told the pollsters that they ultimately planned their trips as least partly due to the state’s pot laws.
“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,” Denise Miller, the director of tourism surveys for Strategic Marketing and Research Insights, or SMARI, told the Denver Post. “It’s certainly having some influence — both, I think, positive and negative — on that decision process.”
Ultimately, however, SMARI’s poll found that only 8 percent of tourists actually visited a licensed pot shop in Colorado — the same proportion as last year when the recreational weed law first came into effect. Of that 8 percent, the pollsters noted, nearly 9 out 10 said marijuana was their primary motivator for making the trip — up nearly three-fold from one year earlier.
“I think it is rearing its head as a significant travel and tourism amenity for visitors coming to Colorado,” Al White, the former head of the Colorado Tourism Office, told the paper.
Adults have been able to buy marijuana and state-licensed shops in Colorado since early last year, and the state has previously determined that a record-breaking 71.3 million visitors had spent $18.6 billion in Colorado during 2014. That same year, the state determined that around $700 million worth of marijuana was sold by Colorado retailers.
SMARI’s findings are based off of a 33-question survey given in the fall to 3,254 tourists from other states, and around 10 percent said they vacationed in Colorado between April and September.
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