My first experience of being shown the benefits of Artificial Intelligence did not go well.
A tech boffin who is far more intelligent than me was attempting to outline the benefits AI could bring my travel company.
I was impressed by the Instagram posts which took keywords from our reviews and turned them into an elegy about Poncho Tours.
They all needed a slight tweak to add the human touch, but were a good base, and I could see the benefits.
Next we turned to a photo: a moody shot through a wine glass with stunning ochre and green landscape in the background certainly worked well, and would hopefully encourage anyone to take a wine tour in Argentina.
“But where is the photo from, who’s the photographer?” I asked, Luddite dumb-ass that I am.
“It’s not a real photo. It’s AI,” came the reply.
Ah, OK… leave aside the fact that as an ex-journalist (in spirit, once a scribe, always a scribe) I’m not delighted about putting photographers out of work (even though Fleet St snappers used to dismiss us as “blunts” because back in the old days we had pencils tucked behind our ears)… still, impressive.
The next photo was of our famous Fourteen Coloured hill of Hornocal: this is a hill, incidentally, that when we started our tours 18 years not even we had heard of, but which is now requested by anyone who travels north of Salta, on our Essential Humahuaca or Salt & 7 Colours tours (not to mention the 14 Colours and Cloud Forest trail which I took a couple from the New Forest along last week).
Except it wasn’t.
It was instead the equally colourful Vinicunca Rainbow Mountain in Peru: now so instagrammed and selfied to death that my friend Luca Newbold, who owns Llama Travel, no longer includes it in his Peru itineraries, as he says “it has become so crowded that the experience of being somewhere special in the Andes is all but lost.”
I am sure you’ve noticed if using Google (but not secure browsers like Avast or Firefox) that AI summaries now appear at the top of searches. Indeed, recent guests said they found us through CoPilot, a Microsoft aid which helps you plan your holiday.
Here’s how it went:
Q: I am going to Salta in Argentina and I’m looking for tailor-made tours.
A: You’re in luck — Salta offers some fantastic tailormade tour options that dive deep into its culture, landscapes, and wine country. Two standout companies are Poncho Tours and Autentica Salta, both known for personalised experiences.
The next story sounds like an urban myth, but it appears to be true; a couple in Malaysia drove 400km from their home in Kuala Lumpur to board a cable car through stunning scenery to a five star restaurant at the top of the mountain which they’d seen in a TV item.
But it didn’t exist.
It looks completely real, and the television report even features interviews with happy customers: but note the tag (possibly added later) which says “AI generated video”.
My Malay is not up to scratch, but my first thought is “What exactly was the point of this news report?” (unless it was an April Fool’s joke).
There have been other reports of AI creating entirely fake locations.
The owner of another Peruvian travel agency, Gongora Meza, told the BBC about two tourists he overheard on their way hiking to the “Sacred Canyon of Humantay”.
“There is no Sacred Canyon of Humantay!” he said. “The name is a combination of two places that have no relation to the description. The tourist paid nearly US$160 to get to a rural road in the environs of Mollepata without a guide or destination.”
What’s more, Meza insisted that this seemingly innocent mistake could have cost these travellers their lives. “This sort of misinformation is perilous in Peru. The elevation, the climatic changes and accessibility have to be planned. When you use a program which combines pictures and names to create a fantasy, then you can find yourself at an altitude of 4,000m without oxygen and phone signal.”
Back to Poncho Tours and my Instagram AI-generated posts…
This one is quite good, and even has the correct (British!) spelling of “flavour” (though I would question the need for the superfluous “for” in the opening):
Craving for local experiences? With Poncho Tours, relive the past in the pre-Incan ruins, savour spectacular local flavours from empanadas to wines 🍷, and engage in authentic exchanges with local communities along remote villages. 🏘️ Fasten your seat belts and get ready to be transported to an extraordinary world.
This one not so much: it’s the Cuesta del Obispo and lamb moussaka may be a typical dish in Greece, but it isn’t in Argentina:
Who needs Route 66 when you’ve got Route 40 with Poncho Tours? 🇦🇷🚗 Unforgettable road-trip from Argentina’s Crespo del Obispo to Cachi, all under blue skies! (And yes, I’m still recovering from the gorgeous taste of that lamb moussaka😋)
And apart from the fact that maté is a green tea best drunk during the day not at night, as it’s a stimulant, the missing accent here makes me sound like some mad scientist:
Rolling through the rocky valleys of Salta with Poncho Tours 🚗🌄 Nick plays tour guide by day, and mate brewer by night 🍵 How’s that for service?
Moral of the story: when you’re planning to tour Argentina, send me an old-fashioned email telling me when you’re coming, how many of you are travelling, how long you’ve got, what you love doing and what grabs you from our webpage.
I can guarantee a real person will reply… at least for the foreseeable future.
