In Galway, artificial intelligence appears to have its favourite spots. A study of tourist recommendations generated by ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Claude shows that a handful of sites account for the vast majority of suggestions offered to travellers. It raises a fundamental question: if we increasingly entrust the planning of our trips to algorithms, might we all end up in the same place?
Five places account for 87% of recommendations in Galway
The findings are particularly striking in County Galway. According to a study conducted by the Searchable platform and reported by the Galway Advertiser on 24 September 2026, the five attractions most frequently mentioned appeared in 87% of the general responses analysed about Galway.
Kylemore Abbey tops the recommendations
Kylemore Abbey overwhelmingly leads the recommendations, appearing in 92% of responses. It is followed by Connemara National Park (88%), Galway’s Latin Quarter (84%), the Spanish Arch (81%) and the Aran Islands.
These choices are difficult to dispute: each of these places undoubtedly merits a visit. Kylemore Abbey is among Connemara’s most emblematic sites, while the Latin Quarter and the Spanish Arch are almost natural stops on a first visit to Galway.
Must-see sights that end up eclipsing everything else
The issue lies elsewhere. Ireland’s tourism offering cannot be reduced to its best-known sites, and the systematic repetition of the same recommendations risks making many other places virtually invisible to travellers who use artificial intelligence alone to plan their stay.
As conversational assistants become part of travellers’ habits, this concentration could also shape itineraries themselves. Two people consulting different tools may ultimately end up with surprisingly similar plans.
More than 76,000 questions put to artificial intelligence tools
The study is not based on a handful of isolated tests. Searchable says it analysed more than 76,000 questions about tourist attractions across the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland.
2,820 queries analysed for Galway alone
For Galway alone, 2,820 questions were submitted to the different tools studied.
Nationally, the five most recommended attractions in each county appear, on average, in around three-quarters of general responses. Galway is among the areas where this concentration is strongest.
Above all, these findings highlight the considerable gap in visibility that can exist between a small number of extremely well-known attractions and the rest of a region’s tourism heritage.
Even ‘hidden gems’ remain highly concentrated
Explicitly asking for ‘hidden gems’—those much-sought-after little-known places favoured by travellers looking to get off the beaten track—is not necessarily enough to break the pattern.
In Galway, the five dominant sites still appeared in 41% of responses to this type of query, according to data cited by the Galway Advertiser.
In other words, asking artificial intelligence to suggest ‘secret’ or ‘little-known’ places does not necessarily guarantee the discovery of genuinely under-the-radar locations.
Some Galway sites are becoming almost invisible
68% of attractions mentioned in fewer than 10% of responses
At the other end of the ranking, a large share of the tourism offering struggles to emerge. According to the study, 68% of Galway attractions appear in fewer than one in ten responses, while 15% are never mentioned in the queries tested.
This limited visibility obviously does not mean that these places are less worthwhile. Rather, it reveals just how heavily digital prominence can influence recommendations produced by artificial intelligence tools.
Local gems absent from the AI radar
Examples cited include Kilcornan Lost Village and Teampall na Seacht Mac Rí. These places illustrate another way of discovering western Ireland: one that is more local, more under the radar and often removed from the most standardised itineraries.
The phenomenon extends far beyond Galway. Across the 3,662 Irish attractions studied, Searchable estimates that 17% never appeared in the responses generated during its tests.
For rural areas, small heritage sites and attractions with fewer resources to secure digital visibility, the issue is far from insignificant.
When AI ends up standardising travel
These findings do not, of course, mean that travellers should abandon artificial intelligence when planning a trip. Used properly, it is a particularly effective tool for organising an itinerary, comparing options or quickly getting an initial selection of ideas.
Places that are already visible become even more visible
But the way it works has a limitation: artificial intelligence draws on information available online and on sources it considers sufficiently relevant to build its response.
Places that already benefit from a strong digital presence are therefore more likely to be identified, mentioned and then recommended. Conversely, a remarkable site that is poorly documented, rarely mentioned or has little online content can much more easily slip under the radar.
An algorithmic cycle that is difficult to break
The risk, then, is of a cycle that is especially difficult to break: the most visible sites are recommended more often, attract more visitors and generate more online content, which can further strengthen their visibility in future recommendation systems.
Ultimately, the question goes beyond the simple choice of an itinerary. It also concerns the distribution of tourist flows and the ability of lesser-known destinations to exist in an environment where an increasing share of trip planning takes place through search engines and artificial intelligence-based assistants.
Guide-Irlande.com: looking beyond the five must-sees
It is precisely to avoid this standardised view of travel that Guide-Irlande.com has championed for years an editorial approach based on the diversity of places and genuine human curation.
Introducing the Ireland that escapes the algorithms
Our role is not simply to list the best-known attractions. We also document forgotten abbeys, megalithic sites, secluded beaches, villages, gardens, islands, walks and historic places that do not systematically feature in itineraries suggested by major platforms.
This matters all the more in Ireland because some of the most memorable experiences lie precisely beyond the main tourist routes: a back road in Connemara, an almost deserted medieval ruin, a small harbour, a village pub or an archaeological site lost in the countryside.
These places do not always have the same digital clout as attractions welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors. Yet they are fully part of what makes a trip to Ireland unique.
Human curation rather than a simple popularity list
Nothing can fully replace a guide shaped by a human approach. An algorithm can identify the places most often recommended; editorial work makes it possible to understand why a place is worth visiting, which traveller it suits, how to incorporate it intelligently into an itinerary and, above all, to bring forward places that have not yet enjoyed the same digital visibility.
This approach also makes it possible to put a recommendation in context. An exceptional site will not necessarily be suitable for a family with young children, a traveller without a car, an archaeology enthusiast or someone with only two days to explore Galway.
This ability to select, contextualise and sometimes deliberately move beyond popularity rankings is one of the main added values of a specialist guide.
AI as a tool, humans as a compass
Combining artificial intelligence and on-the-ground expertise
The Galway study does not therefore signal the end of AI-assisted travel. Instead, it underlines the importance of drawing on multiple sources and of not confusing what is most recommended with everything that genuinely deserves to be discovered.
When planning a stay in Ireland, the ideal may ultimately be to combine both worlds: use AI to save time, then rely on specialist guides and human editorial expertise to move beyond the most obvious recommendations.
After all, travelling is not simply about ticking off a succession of must-see sights. It is also about taking a road you had not planned to follow, stopping in a village you did not know existed, or discovering a site whose name did not appear in any ‘top 10’.
And in Galway, that may mean visiting Kylemore Abbey and Connemara National Park… but certainly not stopping there.
Sources: Searchable study, data updated in September 2026; Galway Advertiser, 24 September 2026.
