Is AI Hallucinating Your Destination?

Travelers are discovering more destinations through AI than ever before. 

A third of global travelers already use AI tools to sketch itineraries or compare options, and more are coming online every day. That shift comes with a new problem: many destinations are now fighting AI hallucinations and rumors about places, attractions, and events that never existed in the first place.

No longer outliers- this is now part of the travel landscape! 

A perfect example: the Buckingham Palace Christmas market incident. Viral posts showed a glowing winter fair on the palace grounds. Snow. Floating lights. Picture perfect stalls. TikTok and Instagram made it look completely real. Travelers booked trains and flocked to the gates only to find fences and rain puddles. 

Surprise! There had never been a market and the Palace eventually had to issue a public correction because foot traffic became unmanageable.

Not just Buckingham Palace

Once you see this pattern, you notice it everywhere. Tour operators receiving requests for day trips to imaginary villages with rivers and lavender fields. Travelers arriving looking for a mountain cable car that no one in the region has ever heard of. Social feeds packed with algorithm-friendly visuals that trigger very real behavior in the offline world.

The question is, why do these hallucinations keep happening? 

It rarely comes from “bad data.” It more often comes from the way prompts frame the task. 

Ask an AI assistant for “a magical destination with unbelievable assets” and it will build something that fits that request even if it bends toward fiction. Some patterns are assembled from fragments of real places. Some are stitched together from visuals that already circulate online. Some are pure invention. 

The mechanics are not malicious. They are “creative leaps shared with confidence”.

Often the AI just wants to please its user.

A tricky problem, even for specialists

Even people who understand how AI collects, weighs, and ranks information are surprised by how convincingly these leaps are presented. Structured data, schema markup, entity relationships... all of these drive accuracy, but they do not stop generative systems from producing a market on palace grounds or a village pulled from a composite of a hundred influencer reels. 

Then once something “looks right,” it spreads. And when demand surges around a piece of misinformation, it becomes a real-world operational issue.

These fake places aren’t always purely hallucinated, but made up by people using AI generated images to “promote” them on social media, whether for a scam, a dream, or just to sow chaos. Regardless, once the image or story spreads, it’s hard to stop. 

You and your brand are at risk from hallucinated AI

This is where DMOs, tourism boards, and tour and activity operators feel the impact. Hallucinated destinations can erode trust, create visitor frustration, and overwhelm frontline teams with questions they never expected to answer.

There is also a safety angle. Sending visitors to the wrong trailhead or to a remote area with no facilities can put them at risk. 

The ripple effect is bigger than it looks. A single viral clip can reframe how travelers perceive a place. That perception can stick long after the misinformation fades. You can do everything right locally and still find yourself managing corrections for an experience you never promoted.

The “AI is my friend” trust illusion

There is also a wider context. Many travelers see the fluent language of LLMs and assume the tool “knows” what it is describing. Many feel as if they are speaking to a person.

That illusion encourages overtrust. We see this across industries, although travel is particularly vulnerable because information gaps are common. Less than a third of tours and activities worldwide are bookable online. Many do not publish updated dates, prices, or capacity. Even if AI wanted to be accurate, the data does not always exist.

This is why travelers, DMOs, and platforms all share responsibility for what happens next.

So what can we do about it?

For travelers

• Use AI to brainstorm and narrow options. Ask it to check for national holidays, weather patterns, or logistics. But verify everything before committing. Look for reviews or confirmations that predate the viral post. Search outside social media. 

• Check the official DMO website or call an operator when something looks too cinematic. AI tools are excellent for inspiration. They should not be the only source of truth.

• There is also still space for trusted human travel advisors. They verify and filter noise; they know what is real and can make good recommendations.

For DMOs and destination marketers

• Stay ahead of your own narrative. Monitor the appearances of your destination across AI platforms and social channels. Track patterns. If a hallucinated attraction starts gaining traction, prepare a fast response. 

• A simple landing page or social post that clarifies the facts can redirect a lot of confused visitors. 

• Publish structured data. Keep hours, access details, and closures up to date. The more accurate the information, the fewer creative liberties show up later.

• It also helps to test how AI currently describes your place. Run audits every quarter. Ask the same questions travelers ask. If the tool invents a waterfall or misidentifies an event, now you know where to intervene. This is becoming part of brand stewardship.

For the industry at large

• Closed ecosystems with verified providers are going to play a bigger role. They reduce the chance of a model inventing features that the destination never offered. They also set clear boundaries on what can be hallucinated. We already see this shift in booking engines, loyalty apps, and OTA integrations.

• Where this goes next is still evolving. Some level of consumer misprompting will always exist. Some level of AI creativity will always exist. What matters is how places protect their reputations and how travelers stay alert to information that feels too polished.

• Travel does not need to be stripped of wonder, but it does need to be anchored in reality. When that foundation is strong, inspiration is meaningful rather than misleading.

For any additional questions or worries, reach out to the Arrival Projects team today!