Misguided Tourism in the Age of AI? Implications for Tourist Decision-Making and Destination Reputation

This mixed-methods study compares the impact of AI-generated and real tourism images on tourists’ perceptions of authenticity, credibility, and travel intention. The quantitative component employs a within-subjects experiment ( N = 68) using standardised 1–7 Likert scales to evaluate perceptions of stimuli including real and AI-generated images. The experimental results indicate that AI-generated images were associated with higher mean scores for perceived credibility, authenticity, and travel intention than real images. The regression results indicate that credibility and authenticity jointly contribute to visit intention. Younger participants showed smaller perceptual differences between AI-generated and real images in terms of perceived authenticity and credibility. Semi-structured interviews ( N = 12) with local tourism operators explored implications for destination reputation and contributed to the conceptualisation of misguided tourism, defined as a phenomenon resulting from the digital amplification and misrepresentation of destination imagery. It also proposes the Tourism Authenticity Labelling System (TALS) as a preliminary conceptual transparency framework.