Should I use AI to plan my vacation?
Should you use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to plan your vacation? More and more people use ChatGTP and other forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help them with a wide range of tasks. This year we even had our first clients who used ChatGTP to plan their travel itinerary in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. To be fair, at first sight these travel itineraries looked like they were copied from a travel website. But a closer look revealed small, but significant flaws in these itineraries.
Flaws in AI travel itineraries for Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia
Yes, the travel route was possible. And these routes would allow you to visit the main touristic highlights during your vacation in Peru, Bolivia, or Ecuador. But AI wasn’t well informed about realistic travel times, existing ways of transport, departure times, altitude differences and comfortable hotels. In essence, the only reliable information that was provided by ChatGTP was a roadmap for our clients vacation.
The Sacred Canyon of Humantay in Peru
According to the following article in BBC, my clients were lucky that they weren’t promised to be able to visit a non-existing touristic highlight. Recently two tourists in Peru were sent by ChatGTP to the town of Mollepata. They were preparing themselves for a hike through the mountains, in order to visit the Sacred Canyon of Humantay. However, this canyon doesn’t exist. The name is a combination of three very different tourist attraction in Peru, namely; The Sacred Valley, Colca Canyon and Laguna de Humantay. These tourists were lucky that a local tour guide overheard their plans, or else they might have spend days hiking through the Peruvian mountains looking for a non-existing location…
The risks of planning your vacation with AI
Using AI to plan a vacation might look convenient, but as you can read above, there are several risks you need to be aware of. Below I will give you a short list of potential risk that you have to keep in mind while organizing a vacation to Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and other destinations.
1. Outdated or Incorrect Information
AI tools might provide recommendations based on outdated data, such as: hotel availability, travel times, transportation options, local regulations, opening hours, and/ or travel restrictions. This can lead to unexpected and unwelcome surprises during your vacation.
2. Lack of Personal Context
AI still has difficulties with implementing personal preferences and cultural sensitivities in its travel recommendations. What does it mean to travel as a vegan through Ecuador? Or how can you visit Machu Picchu in a wheelchair. How does it feel to fly from sea level to 3400 m (11155 feet) altitude? Is it safe to travel in an overnight bus in Bolivia?
3. Overconfidence in Suggested Options
AI-generated itineraries can sound convincing, even when they include unrealistic travel information. This unrealistic travel information can include: Non-existing locations; Incorrect transport information (recommending clients to fly from A to B, while no flight services exist on this route; Geographically inefficient travel routes (like not taking altitude differences in consideration); Trekking recommendations, while it is raining season in Peru; and more…
4. Hidden Bias or Commercial Priorities
Some AI tools may promote certain hotels, tours, or airlines due to underlying partnerships or biased data sources. AI might present these options as “best options” without knowing why and without transparency about its sources. Its answer will depend on how and by whom the AI services was/ is trained.
5. Privacy Concerns
To personalize suggestions, AI might ask for personal data such as travel history, preferences, or even passport and payment details. If not handled securely, this increases data privacy risks.
6. Cultural Misinterpretations
AI can misrepresent local customs or etiquette. For instance, it might recommend behaviours or dress codes that are inappropriate or disrespectful in certain regions. Indigenous people in Peru, who aren’t working in tourism, often don’t like it when you take pictures of them. This is often because they are a little embarrassed by their appearance and think that they don’t look appropriate for the photo. Or they just don’t want unknown people to take pictures of them. In Ecuador it isn’t appreciated when women lay topless on the beach. While in Bolivia you will be more respected as a man when you wear long trousers, instead of shorts.
7. Lack of Real-Time Adaptability of your AI vacation
The answers from AI depend on the information it has received, before it answers your questions. AI tries to find the most relevant information it can find on the gigantic internet and to save time, it is likely to use the most prominent information. Local weather, traffic and political information about Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador don’t have a very prominent place on the internet. So it is likely that AI isn’t able to adjust your vacation plans in real time to weather disruptions, strikes, protests, sudden closures, or emergencies. (Local) travel agents can be a great help in these unexpected situations.
AI issues with vacation planning are caused by
According to Rayid Ghani, a distinguished professor in machine learning at Carnegie Melon University, the issues with AI stem from how it generates its answers. Large language models like ChatGPT work by analysing massive collections of text and putting together words and phrases that, statistically, feel like appropriate responses. Sometimes this provides perfectly accurate information. Other times, you get what AI experts call a “hallucination”, as these tools just make things up (like the Sacred Canyon of Humantay in Peru). But since AI programs present their hallucinations and factual responses in the same way, it’s often difficult for users to distinguish what’s real from what’s not.
While programs like ChatGPT may seem to be giving you rational, useful advice, the way it gets this information means you can never be completely sure whether it’s telling you the truth. It doesn’t know the difference between true or false information
“AI also doesn’t know the difference between travel advice, directions or recipes,” Ghani said. “It just knows words. So, it keeps spitting out words that make whatever it’s telling you sound realistic, and that’s where lot of the underlying issues come from.”
How to use AI to plan your vacation?
If you still want to use AI to help planning your vacation, after reading all the information above, then I would like to give some recommendations:
– Double-check critical info (transport schedules, regulations, prices).
– Use AI as inspiration, not a final authority.
– Cross-reference your travel information with official sources and local guides.
– Avoid sharing unnecessary personal data.
– Stay flexible while traveling and verify (local) logistics manually.
P.s. the image above was generated with ChatGTP after i asked: “Can you generate a picture of tourism in Peru”
