Each year, thousands of visitors flock to northern Michigan for our beaches, our wineries, our trout streams, and our Nordic ski trails…just to name a few. But are they also coming for our cannabis?
Canna tourism has taken root in states like Colorado, Oregon, and California, where bud-minded visitors can take tours, attend events, and explore offerings at different dispensaries and consumption lounges. Those states have a few years of experience on us, but according to Brian Buchanan—director of tourism strategy for Dunegrass Co., a NoMi cannabis retailer with six locations in the region—the Michigan canna tourism scene is starting to grow.
“Around 30 percent of leisure travelers base their travel plans around where they can consume recreational cannabis,” says Buchanan. “For towns in northern Michigan, that means that there are tourists that are picking their town or a town near them based on the availability of recreational marijuana.”
Dunegrass has positioned their brand as “northern Michigan’s cannabis outfitter,” focusing not just on the products they sell in stores but the overall experience of visiting and exploring northern Michigan. In addition to talking up flower, prerolls, and edibles, their website features recommendations for beaches, biking, camping, dining, and nightlife.
“What we’re trying to do at Dunegrass is … a holistic strategy to try to move the needle for a lot of these towns in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula to show them that cannabis can be a fantastic augment to the other tourism initiatives that they’ve already got,” Buchanan explains.
To read more, click on Northern Express