Here’s How Canada Is Becoming The World’s Cannabis Tourism Hub

It’s been four beautiful years since Canada passed Bill C-45, legalizing the possession, selling, cultivation, and processing of recreational adult-use cannabis. And since then, some cities have been making it their goal to become the Napa Valley of weed by rolling out related tourism strategies. 

A new study published in the journal Tourism Review International was created by Susan Dupej of the University of Guelph and Sanjay Nepal, a geographer at the University of Waterloo. The study was titled “Tourism As An Agent Of Cannabis Normalization: Perspectives From Canada” and wrote about how Canadians are “increasingly” using cannabis as a “lifestyle choice.”

The research duo sourced data from 2018-2020 regarding businesses and companies offering tourism-related experiences. This started with social media postings of cultivation facilities and showing users around through a virtual medium. The same occurred in news stories and finally led weed to a whole other audience. 

While this was a great start, it wasn’t long before hotels and “Bud and Breakfasts” started appearing throughout the country, not to mention the classy spa-type retreats and glamping trips. The researchers also discovered there was a huge market for tourists wanting to learn how to infuse cannabis into food. 

Not to their surprise, Canada has an abundance of weed cooking classes, grow room tours, glass blowing demonstrations, and joint-rolling classes, according to Times Colonist. Don’t even get us started on the number of weed weddings in the country. 

That said, there wouldn’t be a thriving cannabis tourism industry if it weren’t for the plant itself, especially high-end, quality flower from proud Canadian brands like Contraband Cannabis.

Contraband is one of the many brands moving the Canadian market forward with premium flower and vital branding initiatives that place the company far apart from competitors.

Contraband’s flagship and holy-grail product is by far the renowned Nitro Tin-packaged Sativa strain, CNDYLND. This whopping 22-28% THC strain is the perfect addition to tag along during your next cannabis-related tour, keeping you awake, social, and thirsty for knowledge.

The strain is a cross between Granddaddy Purp and Bay Platinum Cookies, awakening the connoisseur in you while you travel through Canada’s successful cannabis cultivation facilities, extraction labs, or even your friend’s weed wedding.

That’s not all. If you’re the modern cannabis user who always has music playing through earbuds, play the tunes that inspired generations of cannabis advocates with Contraband’s curated Spotify playlist, “The Intro.” These tunes will definitely leave you inspired to learn more about the legal industry that once seemed too good to be true.

One town in Ontario is aiming to “become the Silicon Valley of the cannabis industry,” said Smith Falls Mayor Shawn Pankow to U.S. Congress in a document that wrote about the city’s plans to launch a three-year strategy for cannabis tourism. 

Leading and largest licensed cannabis producer, Canopy Growth, first started operations in Smith Falls. The small city is also home to the first cannabis-themed golf course in North America, “Rolling Greens.” But if we take a look out west, some companies are taking the experience one step further. 

Enter Wicked Wine Tours from Kelowna, British Columbia. Founder Nicholas Wilson has long appreciated the experience of guiding tourists through the wine region, but a few years back, the company decided to create Wicked Weed Tours. 

It’s no secret that B.C. has some of the best weed in the country thanks to its favorable growing climate, and that’s exactly what the tour highlights. Picking up guests in a van, they travel to a cannabis cultivation site to better understand the plant and the process from seed to sale. 

This sounds very familiar, most likely because wine tours have embodied these educational and first-hand experiences for years. But, as fully legalized countries like Canada continue to search for ways to make use of the cash crop, it looks like tourism is its best bet.