STERNA

According to TUI’s latest August 2026 report, 43% of respondents booked a trip or activity after seeing a viral post on social media. Futhermore, TikTok has become the main source of inspiration for Gen Z travellers.

But, with increasing numbers of AI-generated content, and it becoming harder to tell what’s real from what’s fake, it’s led to something curious happening in the travel industry.

Fool me once, fool me twice

The rate of adoption of AI tools has been faster than any other consumer technology in history. But it’s moved faster than what we can keep up with. Scientific theories recognise that evolutionary change in our brain takes tens of thousands years. Meanwhile technology has moved so quickly and we’ve created a new reality and modern, digital world for ourselves that our brains haven’t adapted to.

The most tangible we see this is in how easily so many people believe the information offered up by LLMs like chatGPT, Claude, Gemini etc. According to Deloitte’s Digital Consumer Trends 2026 report, over a quarter of AI users still do not realise that Gen AI is a probabilistic tool that generates inaccuracies and “hallucinates”. 

Some die-hard AI users might argue that the technology is developing faster and improving in accuracy, for example citing references for where it got the information from. However, Stanford University’s 2026 findings reveal that hallucination rates across 26 top AI models can range from 22% to 94%.

Furthermore, a PubMed Central (PMC) 2025 study found that 68% of the links in the references were incorrect, 31% were fabricated and 7% of citations were incomplete references. Oftentimes, it also references articles written by AI, and with 50% of online content already written by AI, this is bound to increase.

So what does this mean for the travel industry? 

Seeing is believing

AI has been generating realistic-sounding lies, and travellers are falling for it. There have been several reports over the last year of people being duped by fake social media posts and AI recommendations, and turning up at non-existent attractions:

Weldborough Hot Springs

CNN Travel recently reported on an Australian tour company’s AI agent recommending a remote, hot spring attraction to tourists. The northern Tasmania “Weldborough Hot Springs” were made to sound so compelling that multiple tourists turned up at the local Weldborough Hotel, asking where they could find this “tranquil haven”. The only problem was it didn’t exist. “If you can find these hot springs, beers are on me,” Kristy Probert, owner of Weldborough Hotel reportedly told CNN.

Buckingham Palace Christmas Market

Last Christmas, a similar thing occurred at Buckingham Palace, London, England. Viral AI-generated images shared on social media tricked tourists and locals into going to the royal residence in search of the “first ever Christmas market”. They were once again disappointed, as no such market existed. This appeared to be a deliberate hoax, fuelled by a human-managed social media account that relies heavily on AI-generated content and engagement farming.

Kuak Skyride

In June 2025, an elderly Malaysian couple reportedly drove around 290km (180 miles) from Kuala Lumpur to Kuak Hulu in Perak after seeing a TikTok news report-style video promoting the supposed “Kuak Skyride”. The video showed an apparently real cable-car attraction, complete with a ticket booth, queues of visitors and a reporter interviewing tourists and a scenic ride ending at a deer enclosure. None of it existed however. The entire video was AI-generated, including the news reporter.

Sacred Canyon of Humantay

Then there was the case of two tourists preparing to hike the “Sacred Canyon of Humantay” in Peru. As with many other travellers today, they reportedly used AI to generate the entire itinerary for them. But to their dismay, there was no such canyon. The name appeared to be a conflation of Humantay Lake and other geographical references, rather than an actual destination. The tourists had already paid around $160 to travel to a rural road near Mollepata, expecting to find the canyon. 

Wasting time and money is one thing, but the potential consequences can be more serious. In this case in Peru, the area reaches elevations of around 4,000m. A local operator warned that travellers following fabricated AI information could end up in remote terrain without adequate preparation, oxygen or phone coverage.

All eggs in one AI basket

These examples show how easily AI-generated content can manufacture the believability of an established tourist destination. Generative AI invents the attraction, then, other AI systems generate articles ranking it as a must-see, while LLMs use those fabricated articles as sources when recommending it to travellers. And so the cycle continues, creating a convincing web of misinformation.

While there’s only been a handful of cases of travellers being duped so far, it’s getting harder to detect what’s real and what’s fake online. Additionally, the reliance on AI or social media for travel planning is increasing. According to a report by Mindtrip for Business, an AI-powered trip-planning and discovery platform, 54% of travellers use AI to plan their travels. 38% of travellers also already say they’re comfortable booking flights, hotels or experiences through AI. 

As long as AI keeps generating content in the same way, it’s going to be interesting to see how the travel industry continues to be impacted.

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