Chart of the Week: Estimated $100M in Colorado Recreational Sales Tied to Leisure Tourists
By Eli McVey
Cannatourism is alive and well in Colorado.
Travelers who visited the state primarily for leisure purposes spent roughly $98 million at recreational marijuana stores last year, accounting for nearly 17% of overall adult-use cannabis sales in Colorado, according to a first-of-its-kind estimate by
The figures dont include marijuana purchases by visitors who were in town primarily for business or other reasons, so the actual tourism impact on sales is higher.
While many stores in the Denver metro area primarily serve locals, some located along the highway leading to the city from the airport and in popular tourism hotspots like the 16th Street Mall get a majority of their business from visitors. In some mountain resort towns, tourists account for 90% or more in sales.
Indeed, Ari Markowitz chief technology officer at Native Roots, which has recreational cannabis shops throughout Colorado said the companys locations in popular destinations for skiing and snowboarding attract a much larger share of tourists than its average store in other places, where residents account for the vast majority of sales.
The estimates were made by analyzing average per-person recreational marijuana spending data from the What Cannabis Patients & Consumers Want research report by
One of the studies, by Longwoods International, found that 14.9 million visitors age 25+ made overnight leisure visits to Colorado last year, while the other study by Strategic Marketing and Research Insights (SMARI) found that 11% of tourists age 25+ visited a dispensary during their stay.
Neither of these reports focused solely on tourists use of marijuana, but the estimates are based on sound data and provide insight into just how important out-of-state visitors are to Colorados recreational cannabis market.
The studies indicate that the importance of tourists to Colorados marijuana industry may also be increasing at least in the short term.
The Longwoods International report showed a 6% increase in leisure trips to Colorado from the previous year, well above the average national growth rate of 1%.
Furthermore, results from the SMARI survey showed 23% of Colorado tourists were positively influenced to visit the state by the ...
