The owner of the Weldborough Hotel, Kristy Probert, said the pub had been flooded with people searching for the imaginary springs, fielding queries from dozens of confused visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually had a group of 24 drivers turn up there two days ago that were on a trip from the mainland, and they\u2019d actually taken a detour to come to the hot springs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cfreezing cold\u201d Weld river was unlikely to live up to their expectations, she said.<\/p>\n
Scott Hennessey, the owner of Australian Tours and Cruises and operator of Tasmania Tours, told CNN \u201cthe online hate and damage to our business reputation has been absolutely soul destroying\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not a scam, we are a married couple trying to do the right thing by people. We are legit, we are real people, we employ sales staff\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
He explained that the company had hired a third party to look after the website while he and his wife went on holiday themselves: a decision they have come to regret.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to compete with the big boys, and part of that is you\u2019ve got to keep your content refreshed and new all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
While sometimes the AI was \u201cperfect\u201d, Hennessey had also \u201cseen it create animals I\u2019ve never seen before \u2013 three-legged wombat, crocodile-looking things\u201d.<\/p>\n
The incident reflects broader changes in the travel industry informed by advancing technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cTourists trust AI more than review sites,\u201d Anne Hardy, a professor at Southern Cross University, told CNN \u2013 despite 90% of ChatGPT-generated itineraries having errors in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have witnessed many cases where AI has made suggestions for day walks, which are very inaccurate, ranging from the length of the walk, its difficulty level, or weather conditions.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of the Weldborough Hotel, Kristy Probert, said the pub had been flooded with people searching for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,98659,1763,1135,138,1656,148771,148772,189,51584,1362,111,139,69,35968,13743,15412,6921,55600,120329,61,9182,274],"class_list":["post-258544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-aigenerated","tag-article","tag-australian","tag-business","tag-company","tag-droves","tag-fictitious","tag-holiday","tag-hot","tag-made","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sends","tag-sent","tag-spot","tag-spring","tag-springs","tag-tasmanian","tag-to","tag-tourists","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}