AI content material on Australian tour web site sends vacationers chasing sizzling springs that don’t exist | – The Instances of India – Worldwide Dispatch

Australian tour web site’s AI content material sends guests on wild goose chase for non-existent Tasmanian sizzling springs

An Australian tour web site has been pressured to drag content material and problem warnings after travellers started arriving in a distant Tasmanian city searching for sizzling springs that have been by no means there, a vacation spot invented completely by synthetic intelligence and offered on-line as a must-visit attraction for 2026.The fictional web site, referred to as Weldborough Sizzling Springs, appeared in an article titled “7 Finest Sizzling Springs Tasmania Experiences for 2026” on the Tasmania Excursions web site, describing a “secluded forest retreat” providing a “peaceable escape” and an “genuine connection to nature”. The web site claimed walkers have been greeted by swimming pools “wealthy in therapeutic minerals”. The issue, as confused locals quickly needed to clarify, is that Weldborough has no sizzling springs in any respect.

Confused vacationers, baffled locals

Weldborough is a small settlement in north-east Tasmania, greatest identified for its pub and its proximity to forests and rivers. But after the article went stay in July 2025, guests started turning up asking attain the marketed swimming pools, usually on the Weldborough Lodge, the city’s most recognisable landmark.

Weldborough Lodge/ Picture: Journey Advisor

Native publican Kristy Probert advised Australian Broadcasting Company that the enquiries rapidly grew to become a each day incidence. “I really had a bunch of 24 drivers flip up there two days in the past that have been on a visit from the mainland, and so they’d really taken a detour to return to the new springs,” she mentioned. As a substitute, Probert discovered herself explaining that the one close by waterway is the Weld River, which she described as “freezing chilly” and “undoubtedly not a sizzling spring”. “They’re extra more likely to discover a sapphire than … to discover a sizzling spring, to be trustworthy,” she mentioned, including that she jokingly promised free drinks to anybody who managed to find the legendary swimming pools. “If you happen to discover the new springs, come again and let me know and I’ll shout you beers all night time, they didn’t come again.”

‘Our AI has tousled utterly’

Tasmania Excursions is operated by Australian Excursions and Cruises, a New South Wales–based mostly firm that runs a number of travel-booking websites. Its proprietor, Scott Hennessy, acknowledged the error and mentioned the article, together with different AI-generated posts, had been eliminated.

The article has since been taken down, together with different AI-generated content material, following complaints and mounting confusion

“Our AI has tousled utterly,” Hennessy mentioned, explaining that the corporate had outsourced some advertising and marketing content material to a 3rd social gathering that used synthetic intelligence. Whereas posts have been often reviewed earlier than publication, some went stay whereas he was abroad.“We’re making an attempt to compete with the massive boys, and a part of that’s protecting our content material refreshed and new on a regular basis,” he mentioned. “We don’t have sufficient horsepower to jot down sufficient content material on our personal, and that’s why we outsource a part of this perform. Typically it’s good and actually good and does what you hope it could do, and generally it will get it utterly flawed.”Hennessy careworn that Tasmania Excursions is a professional enterprise promoting actual excursions, not a hoax web site. “We’re not a rip-off, we’re a married couple making an attempt to do the best factor by individuals … we’re legit, we’re actual individuals, we make use of gross sales workers,” he mentioned. All AI-generated weblog posts, he added, at the moment are being audited.

A rising downside with AI journey recommendation

The Weldborough case shouldn’t be remoted. Journey specialists say so-called “AI hallucinations,” the place programs confidently invent details, are more and more sending individuals to the flawed locations or giving unsafe recommendation. Vacation spot Southern Tasmania’s Anne Hardy mentioned analysis prompt round 90 per cent of AI-generated itineraries contained no less than one error, whereas greater than a 3rd of travellers now depend on AI to plan journeys. Errors usually embrace incorrect opening hours, inaccurate descriptions and, on this case, locations that merely don’t exist. Related incidents have been reported internationally, together with vacationers trying to go to a non-existent canyon in Peru and travellers in Malaysia looking for out an AI-generated cable automobile attraction. For Weldborough, the episode has introduced undesirable consideration, and a gradual stream of disillusioned guests. For travellers extra broadly, it has served as a blunt reminder that, nonetheless convincing the language or imagery, not the whole lot generated on-line displays actuality on the bottom.