Many tourist attractions in Galway are suffering from being ignored by AI chatbots which frequently direct users to the same small number of attractions, leaving that with lower footfall as more and more people use AI to plan holidays.
New research AI perfromance platform Searchable found that chatbots repeat the same five attractions in 87% of their answers to traveller questions about what to do and see in Galway, while 15% are entirely missing.
This presents a risk to Galway’s tourism economy as an increasing number of people who use AI to plan visits are being pushed towards the same small list of places.
Kylemore Abbey, Connemara National Park, The Latin Quarter, Spanish Arch and The Aran Islands come back again and again, each named in at least 72% of answers.
Meanwhile 68% of Galway’s attractions are named in fewer than one in ten answers accoridng to the report, so most local attractions risk losing visitors to this select few that AI biases towards.
Searchable’s AI Tourism Bias Report for Ireland asked ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Mode more than 76,000 times for attraction recommendations across every Irish county, including 2,820 questions about Galway.
It found that AI chatbots repeat the same five attractions in 87% of their answers to traveller questions about what to do and see in Galway, well above the national average of 76%.
Kylemore Abbey is named in 92% of answers, Connemara National Park (88%), The Latin Quarter (84%) and Spanish Arch (81%). Asking for hidden gems returns the same five attractions in 41% of Galway answers.
68% of Galway’s attractions are named in fewer than one in ten answers, and 15% are never named in any answer, including Kilcornan Lost Village and Teampall na Seacht Mac RÃ.
Chris Donnelly, Searchable CEO and co-founder, said, “AI chatbots are reading a select pool of online sources and turning them into the same repetitive recommendations.”
“Most local businesses won’t be aware of what those sources are, or why they’re not being recommended, even for attraction requests that relate to them.”
“That matters for Irish tourism on both the consumer and business side. Although tourism spend is recovering this year, Fáilte Ireland’s Quarterly Economic Update in March showed that August to December was the only period in 2025 where overseas visits grew, and these visits make up 60% of all tourist spending.”
“With more travellers deciding where to go using AI, our data shows they’re being steered towards the same small group of attractions. Places not included on that list risk missing out on primary footfall until the end of 2026.”
