Colorado Tourism Office Now Listing Cannabis Activities

The Colorado Tourism Office has been quietly testing new ground for over a year, finally including cannabis content in its promotional material.

While recreational marijuana sales have been legal in Colorado for over ten years, the CTO was slow to embrace or even acknowledge the plant's ability to attract visitors. As recently as 2022, the official colorado.com tourism website didn't include legal cannabis events on its list of things to do in Colorado, according to pot-friendly party bus owner Sarah Woodson, despite listing breweries, wine events and wineries, casinos and gaming activities, and even agritourism.

But finally, Woodson says, the CTO reached out to her to talk about listing her mobile pot lounge once it was licensed. And after she received her state and Denver cannabis hospitality licenses last year, Woodson's business, the Cannabis Experience, was indeed listed on the state's tourism website. Now, adults who are traveling to Colorado can learn more about her business, which operates cannabis-friendly tours around Denver dispensaries, street-art hot spots and popular taco joints.

Although the state site's cannabis content is still slight and not incredibly up to date, three additional weed-friendly businesses (one of which is closed) are listed on the website, which also includes a page titled "Where Can Colorado Visitors Consume Marijuana?"

Colorado Cannabis Tours, a licensed cannabis tour service and mobile lounge in Denver, is also listed by the CTO, as is Arrowhead Manor, a private bed-and-breakfast in Morrison that allows several forms of cannabis use, and Speakeasy Vape Lounge & Cannabis Club in Colorado Springs. But the Speakeasy Vape Lounge was operating under a temporary local permit set to expire in 2024 and has already closed for good; Arrowhead Manor doesn't have a cannabis hospitality license, and instead operates as a private venue.

Still, simply acknowledging cannabis as a tourist activity in Colorado is a big step for the CTO.

Cannabis hospitality and pot-friendly events are still largely private in Colorado, so they're difficult for government-run offices to promote. Public cannabis consumption is banned across the state, and some local municipalities, such as Denver, view private cannabis consumption events as illegal public activities.

A state law creating a licensing system for pot-friendly venues and tour services was implemented in 2020, but fewer than eight licensed businesses are currently operating in Colorado, with virtually all of them located in the Denver area. (The Coffee Joint, Denver's only licensed and operating pot-friendly venue, isn't listed on the tourism website, and neither is JAD's Mile High Smoke, the state's only licensed cannabis bar.)

According to the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade, which oversees the CTO, "there has not been a specific policy shift" regarding cannabis, as OEDIT considers "both state and federal rules and regulations in regard to tobacco, alcohol and marijuana promotion" when planning promotions.

"However, we do include content on our site when cannabis is part of a larger event or activity," says CTO spokesperson Hayes Norris.

Wanda James,  a longtime dispensary owner appointed to the CTO board of directors by Governor Jared Polis, says that the board decided "to allow some types of cannabis businesses to advertise" after a state pot hospitality law was implemented in 2020, with emphasis on the word "some." But that process was "significantly slowed" after CTO director Cathy Ritter was dismissed in 2021, she notes. James left her seat on the board at the beginning of 2023, after being elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents.

Getting listed with the Colorado Tourism Office doesn't cost money, but it does require that business owners and organizations apply online and "verify you are part of the tourism industry," according to the form.

"The Cannabis Experience is a great example of that, as they offer a range of immersive cannabis tours and experiences," Norris says, adding that "there have not been any formal changes to colorado.com business rules regarding licensed hospitality businesses and cannabis."

According to research funded by the CTO, 6.2 percent of Colorado tourists said legal pot was one of the main reasons they visited the state in 2018, while over 15 percent of travelers said they planned to visit a dispensary during their visit.

Colorado's status in the cannabis world isn't what it used to be, however. After Colorado became the first state to legalize adult-use pot in 2012, 23 states — sixteen of them since 2018 — have legalized recreational cannabis, as have Washington, D.C., and Canada. As a result, dispensary owners in Colorado have reported a significant drop in tourist-driven revenue.