Interest in travel to Colorado gets high
Colorado on New Year’s Day became the nation’s first state to permit the sale of recreational marijuana.
And since Jan. 1, interest in travel to Denver has jumped.
Coincidence? Probably not.
Data research from a travel website found that searches for airline travel deals to Denver have been outpacing searches for all other U.S. destinations, with a big increase jump starting Jan. 1.
The study by Boston-based Hopper.com found that interest in travel to Denver climbed 6.3% above the national average in December and then by 14% during the first week of January. The study looked at billions of travel queries through online travel sites and brick-and-mortar travel companies.
The interest in traveling to Colorado has been higher in some cities than others.
The biggest increases came from Nashville (63% increase), Minneapolis (58%), Detroit (53%) and Cincinnati (47%), according to the study.
Patrick Surry, Hopper’s chief data scientist, said it may not be a coincidence that some of the cities with the biggest increases have strict drug laws.
“We can’t say what the intentions of the people looking for those flights” were, he said. “But this suggests that it might be a reaction to the demand” for marijuana.
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