AI is still in its infancy and is well known to make mistakes. It lies. It makes stuff up. It hallucinates. And sometimes it just does stuff that’s wrong – sometimes to the point where situations have potentially horrible endings.
So when a travel company’s AI winds up sending clients to a destination that doesn’t exist, is anyone even really surprised?
Here’s what happened
An Australian tour company is owning up after its enthusiastic use of AI sent customers on a wild goose chase to a hot spring in Tasmania that, inconveniently, does not exist.
In a blog post on the Tasmania Tours website that has since been deleted (probably a good thing), the company ranked Australia’s best natural hot springs. Coming in at No. 4 was the Weldborough Hot Springs, which the post described as a “secluded forest retreat” — which sounds like it truly would have been lovely, had it been, you know, a real place.
Weldborough Pass Rainforest Walk — PC: Cowirrie // flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0
“Its reputation as a tranquil haven has made it a favourite among local hiking groups, wellness retreat organizers and anyone wanting to experience one of the more untouched hot springs Tasmania has to offer,” the post claimed, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). All of which was news to the people who actually live there.
The post had originally been published in July 2025. It directed a steady stream of hopeful tourists to Weldborough, a rural town about 185 miles northeast of Hobart, where the only thing bubbling was confusion.
“It was only a couple of calls to start with,” Kristy Probert, owner of the Weldborough Hotel, said to CNN. “But then people began turning up in droves. I was receiving probably five phone calls a day, and at least two to three people arriving at the hotel looking for them.”
She added, diplomatically: “We’re in a very remote location, so it was very random.”
Probert eventually made visitors a standing offer: if they could actually find the hot springs, the beers were on her.
Spoiler alert: no one collected.
While the town does sit along the Weld River, Probert said the water is “freezing” — and mostly used by prospectors who are hunting sapphire and tin.
“They wear wetsuits,” she explained. “There’s a sauna in a nearby town. I guess you could jump into the freezing river after you’ve been over there.”
The mystery was finally cleared up in a Jan. 21 Facebook post from the Weldborough Hotel.
“I’ve had a lovely chat with Scott Hennessey this morning from the Tasmania Tours website and I can confirm he’s not a bot,” the post reads, “but a great guy who runs a small Tassie touring business with his wife Sally.”
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the AI handling their website.
“Our AI has messed up completely,” Hennessey told ABC.
Tasmania Tours is operated by Australian Tours and Cruises, a New South Wales company that runs several tour-booking sites. Hennessey says marketing content is outsourced to a third party that uses AI, and while he usually reviews everything, he happened to be overseas when the imaginary hot springs went live.
“We don’t have enough horsepower to write enough content on our own,” said Hennessey. “Sometimes it’s perfect and really good, and sometimes it gets it completely wrong.”
(*cough*) Sometimes very wrong. (*cough*)
“I’ve seen it create animals I’ve never seen before — three-legged wombats, crocodile-looking things,” Hennessey continued.
All AI-generated blog posts have since been taken down, and Hennessey insists the company itself is very much real.
“We’re not a scam,” he says. “We’re a married couple trying to do the right thing by people. We are legit, we are real people, we employ sales staff.”
The hot springs, however, remain fictional.
Photos (including the 3-legged wombat and “crocodile-looking thing”) were created with the assistance of AI. Because if there was a perfect time to use it… 😉
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