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Low reported severity Media Coverage

Weldborough, Tasmania: AI-written tour-website article invented hot springs; publican says travellers, including a group of 24 drivers, detoured to find them

An AI-generated article on the Tasmania Tours booking website described "Weldborough Hot Springs", a "secluded forest retreat" with pools "rich in therapeutic minerals", as one of the best hot-spring experiences in Tasmania. No such springs exist: the Weld River that runs through Weldborough, a small town in north-east Tasmania, is cold. ABC News reported on 22 January 2026 that travellers who read the article had been turning up at the town's pub, the Weldborough Hotel, to ask for directions, and the publican said she was receiving daily calls and visits and that a group of 24 drivers on a trip from the mainland had taken a detour two days earlier to find the springs. ABC News reported that the article was posted in July 2025, and The Independent, citing ABC News and CNN, reported that inquiries began with a few calls in September 2025. The operator, Australian Tours and Cruises, said its outsourced AI content had "completely messed up", that some posts had gone live by mistake, and that all AI-generated blog posts had been taken down. The reports describe the travellers only as a group; no individual traveller is interviewed, and the AI tool is not named.

AI system
Unidentified AI writing tool
Occurred
Sept 2025 to Jan 2026
Reported
22 January 2026
Event location
Australia
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
4 claims: 4 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 24 people

AI system as recorded: Generative AI used by a third-party marketing contractor to write articles and generate images for the Tasmania Tours booking website (operated by Australian Tours and Cruises); the tool is not named in the inspected reports.

Reported harm

According to the publican quoted by ABC News, travellers who relied on the AI-written article made a wasted journey to a remote town to find springs that do not exist: a group of 24 drivers from the mainland detoured to Weldborough two days before the 22 January 2026 report, and the pub received daily phone calls and in-person visits from people asking for the springs, some wanting to book accommodation. The operator told CNN, as relayed by The Independent, that reputational damage and online hate after the episode had been "absolutely soul-destroying". No injury, financial figure or individual traveller's account is reported.

Outcome

Resolved

The operator said all AI-generated blog posts had been taken down and were being checked, that its content was produced by a third party and would be reviewed, and that it regarded AI content as necessary to compete for prominence in online searches. The Independent reported the article as deleted. No regulatory or legal action is reported.

What remains unknown

  • Which AI tool the contractor used and whether the text and images came from one tool or several; no report names it.
  • How many people in total travelled to or contacted Weldborough; the publican gives one counted group of 24 and otherwise describes daily calls and visits without numbers.
  • The exact date the article went live (ABC News and The Independent give July 2025) and the dates of individual journeys; the 24-driver group is dated only as two days before the 22 January 2026 report.
  • Whether any traveller suffered a financial loss beyond the detour; no traveller is interviewed.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. ABC News describes the article as AI-generated, quotes its text describing "Weldborough Hot Springs" as a "secluded forest retreat" with pools "rich in therapeutic minerals", and reports the operator's admission that the AI technology it uses to create content and articles had "completely messed up" and that a third party used AI to create some of its content. The publican connects that article to the harm: travellers who had read about the springs turned up at the hotel asking for directions, and a group of 24 drivers detoured to find them. The reports state the springs do not exist. The tool is not named.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported An AI-generated article on the Tasmania Tours website described "Weldborough Hot Springs" in north-east Tasmania as a real attraction with mineral-rich pools; no such hot springs exist.

Causal attribution. ABC News's own reading of the website article, with the operator's admission; The Independent relays ABC News.

  • abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'An AI-generated article on a travel booking website has sent tourists to a remote location in Tasmania's north-east, looking for hot springs that do not exist.' and 'The website says walkers are greeted by pools "rich in therapeutic minerals".' and 'The problem is, the hot springs, as depicted in the imagery, do not exist.'
  • independent.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'In a now-deleted article published last July, the Tasmania Tours website suggested visitors go to “Weldborough Hot Springs”, calling it a “peaceful escape” offering an “authentic connection to nature”.'
Reported The website operator, Australian Tours and Cruises, said the AI technology used by its third-party content provider had "completely messed up", that some posts went live by mistake, and that the AI-generated posts were taken down.

Causal attribution. The operator's own statements to ABC News.

  • abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Australian Tours and Cruises has admitted the AI technology it uses to create content and articles to help drive bookings has "completely messed up".' and 'He said the company had outsourced marketing material to a third party, which used AI to create some of its content.' and 'Mr Hennessy said all the AI-generated blog posts had been taken down and were being checked thoroughly.'
Reported Travellers who read the article turned up at or telephoned the Weldborough Hotel asking how to find the springs; the publican said she received daily calls and visits and that a group of 24 drivers on a trip from the mainland had taken a detour to find the springs two days before the report.

Causal attribution. The publican's account as quoted by ABC News and relayed by The Independent; no traveller is interviewed.

  • abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'I actually had a group of 24 drivers turn up there two days ago that were on a trip from the mainland, and they'd actually taken a detour to come to the hot springs' and 'she was getting daily phone calls and in-person visitors asking about the hot springs, some even wanting to book accommodation.'
  • independent.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'It started with a few calls in September, Probert said, and then people began “turning up in droves”.'
Reported The operator said that reputational damage and online hate following the episode had been "absolutely soul-destroying".

Causal attribution. The operator's statement to CNN as relayed by The Independent; the CNN article was not inspected.

  • independent.co.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Australian Tours and Cruises told CNN that the AI-generated post and the resultant damage to their reputation as well as online hate they received had been “absolutely soul-destroying”.'

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-10; no translation was needed and no human reviewer inspected the text. HTTP 200, full article body retained. Applies to s1, s2.

Event countries: Australia. Affected-person countries: Australia. Court countries: Unknown.

ABC News places the invented springs and the travellers' visits in Weldborough, north-east Tasmania, about two hours' drive from Launceston; the publican describes the group of 24 drivers as being on a trip from the mainland, which places them in Australia. No court proceeding is reported.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-10: Published on one attributed reporting chain: ABC News read the website article, quoted its description of the invented springs, obtained the operator's admission that its outsourced AI content had failed, and quoted the publican who received the misdirected travellers, including a counted group of 24 drivers who detoured to find the springs. The Independent relays that account and adds the operator's statement to CNN. The AI-written article is the described output and the travellers' reliance on it is the described connection to the wasted journeys. All claims stay reported because they rest on one chain and no traveller is interviewed.

People described

Travellers who read the tour website's AI-generated article and travelled to or contacted Weldborough looking for the invented hot springs, described by the publican as daily callers and visitors and, on one occasion, a group of 24 drivers on a trip from the mainland. None is named or interviewed in the inspected reports.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 24 people

0 AI participants · 24 other people harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

The publican told ABC News that "a group of 24 drivers" who had taken a detour to find the springs turned up two days before the report; that quoted figure is the counted minimum of travellers harmed. She also described daily phone calls and in-person visitors over a period, which the reports do not quantify, so the status is partial. The business owners and the operator are not counted as harmed persons. Website readers who did not travel or call are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#ai-generated-content#travel#tourism#hallucination#australia#tasmania#website

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Weldborough, Tasmania: AI-written tour-website article invented hot springs; publican says travellers, including a group of 24 drivers, detoured to find them. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-tasmania-weldborough-tour-website-ai-article-invented-hot-springs-travellers-detour

BibTeX

@misc{2025_tasmania_weldborough_tour_website_ai_article_invented_hot_springs_travellers_detour,
  title = {Weldborough, Tasmania: AI-written tour-website article invented hot springs; publican says travellers, including a group of 24 drivers, detoured to find them},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-tasmania-weldborough-tour-website-ai-article-invented-hot-springs-travellers-detour}
}

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