Tourism walks a fine line
State finds legalized cannabis can be a drawing point or a sticking point
The cannabis industry presents a tricky proposition for tourism officials in legal recreational marijuana states.
One one hand, the market is growing fast and it’s quite unusual — not every state can lay claim to the ability for adults to walk into a store and legally buy prerolled joints, edibles and other cannabis products.
On the other, marketing to outof-state visitors is untested and riddled with unknowns — because not everyone, especially the federal government, is on board with legalized pot.
So ultimately, what happens in legal cannabis states, has to stay in legal cannabis states.
But that doesn’t mean that the marketability potential of legalized cannabis markets is being ignored. Tourism officials in several marijuana-friendly states say they’re watching the industry closely while others are champing at the bit to make a move.
“As a market that may develop, we would look to absolutely be a part of that,” said David Blandford, vice president of communications at Visit Seattle.
But there are plenty of obstacles in the way, he said, notably state regulations and the federal government’s unfavorable stance on legality.
Additionally, Visit Seattle just doesn’t have a good grasp on the size and potential of the marijuana tourism market, he said. There’s a dearth of research.
“It’s just a new phenomenon,” he said. “We’re not quite there yet.”
Testing the waters
Washington’s neighbor Oregon is taking a similar stance while keeping in mind a tight tourism budget, said Linea Gagliano, director of global communications for the Oregon Tourism Commission. Gagliano’s office has been in discussions with the state’s attorney general as to what they can and cannot do in promoting the new legal marijuana industry.
“It’s a funny place to be; we don’t exactly know what to do with it,” she said. “And yet, come election season, the whole West Coast may legalize. And at that point, we’re going to need to get our heads together and think, ‘Do we own this message, or just kind of let it do its own thing?’”
Oregon hasn’t conducted research on the topic, she said. Anecdotal evidence points to legal marijuana not being the impetus for travel to the state but an incidental factor — like that of wine tasting.
“Being that it’s still federally illegal, we’re not exactly sure whether to wade into that water,” she said.
In Alaska, the state’s leading tourism trade association has monitored the process of recreational marijuana adoption in the state and will host an informational session at its upcoming convention in early October in Anchorage, said Sarah Leonard, the president and chief executive officer of the Alaska Travel Industry Association.
The general consensus among legalized U.S. states is that while cannabis may represent a developing industry or an important opportunity, in most markets it’s one of many attractions or potential tourist draws, said John Kagia, executive vice president of industry analytics for New Frontier Data, a Washington, D.C.-based cannabis data analysis firm.
“They think it is not yet appropriate to put a distinct and significant emphasis particularly on cannabis,” he said.
Aside from Colorado, the trailblazer in recreational marijuana sales, states have not put resources into studying the interplay of legalization and tourism, he said. However, New Frontier anticipates that — depending on how voting in November shakes out — three states in particular would be paying closer attention to “cannatourism”: California, Massachusetts and Nevada.
“Each of those markets are significant unique tourism destinations within their own right,” he said.
And a state like Nevada presents an interesting opportunity. There could be a natural alignment with promoting marijuana tourism for a state that already offers a “very robust portfolio of adult entertainment,” he said.
In places like California and, possibly, Denver, the idea of establishments for public use of marijuana may be greater drivers for tourism, he said.
The Nevada Division of Tourism is taking a wait-and-see approach: If the state legalizes recreational marijuana, then the office will determine whether it’ll change its marketing strategy, said Bethany Drysdale, chief communications officer for the Nevada Division of Tourism.
“We don’t know yet if recreational marijuana will become fully legal here in Nevada, and are waiting until that happens to determine if it will change our marketing strategy,” Drysdale wrote in an e-mail. “Our tourism motto here is ‘Don’t Fence Me In,’ and we pride ourselves on being a very live-and-let-live state.”
Watching closely
On the final day of the 2016 Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference in Breckenridge earlier this month, the state’s tourism chief did not once mention the word “marijuana” in her keynote speech.
The credit for the state’s record tourism year went to long-established drivers: the great outdoors, recreation, arts, cultural heritage, cuisine and ski resorts.
In an interview following her speech, Cathy Ritter, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, said her office continues to watch and study the Colorado marijuana industry, but hasn’t folded it into any broader marketing plan.
“I think we would have to continue to monitor it” even if it were legalized federally, she said. “If it becomes a topic that is worthwhile to promote on our website, then we would think about that when the time came. But it is so far down the list of the reasons why people come to Colorado, that it really doesn’t make sense to highlight it even today.”
Recent studies by Strategic Marketing & Research Insights show that during the winter of 2015-2016 that 4 percent of visitors surveyed said legal marijuana motivated their trip to Colorado, 7 percent said it was in their top three reasons for traveling to Colorado, and 12 percent visited a dispensary while traveling to Colorado, said Denise Miller, executive vice president of the Indianapolis-based market research firm.
Two-thirds of people surveyed were indifferent to legal marijuana and 20 percent surveyed said it was a deterring factor, she added.
When Colorado legalized recreational marijuana, it appeared to have a net negative effect on surveyed travelers, she said. During the past three seasons, that has shifted to a net positive position, she added.
Miller draws a parallel for marijuana tourism to that of the adoption of legal gambling in states outside of Nevada.
“I think it’ll probably have the same kind of arc of development,” she said. “As more states pass it and it becomes something that’s everywhere, they’ll promote it.”