Travellers continue to place greater trust in local knowledge than in AI, yet their dining decisions increasingly begin with digital tools. The shift raises questions about how much of a destination visitors encounter beyond their screens.
One of the most consequential changes in travel is happening after the itinerary is set. A visitor standing in an unfamiliar neighbourhood can ask a chatbot where to eat and receive a recommendation without speaking to anyone nearby. As conversational AI becomes an increasingly accessible way to make everyday decisions, restaurant recommendations reveal a striking disconnect between the advice travellers trust and the advice they actually seek.
According to a Hint App survey of 5,918 Hint users across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Latin America, and the European Union who took a leisure trip in the past 12 months, 46% trusted locals most when deciding where to eat that night. Friends followed at 20%, compared with 14% for AI and 12% for maps and reviews. Yet only 29% asked a local for a recommendation on their most recent trip, and just 2% approached one first.
Maps and reviews were the first stop for 34% of respondents, while 31% began with an AI chatbot. Overall, 58% used AI as one source of travel advice. The availability of an immediate answer appears to be altering when travellers turn to people around them, even where human knowledge remains their stated preference.
Among those who consulted AI first, only 19% subsequently asked a local for advice, compared with 34% of other respondents. The association does not establish that AI caused the difference. People already comfortable relying on digital recommendations may be less inclined to approach strangers. Still, 37% of AI users explicitly reported skipping a guide or concierge because the chatbot had already answered their question.
That reliance persists despite imperfect results. Among respondents who used AI, 54% followed a recommendation that turned out to be crowded, touristy, closed or non-existent. These experiences range from subjective disappointment to factual error, and the survey does not establish whether local recommendations would have performed better. What the findings suggest is that immediate access to an answer can be persuasive even when the quality of that answer is uncertain. Once a decision feels settled, there may be little reason to seek another opinion.
Kirill Liakh, Managing Director of Hint App, sees a less obvious consequence in the way recommendations shape discovery.
“A local can hear what you're looking for and tell you that you're asking the wrong question,” Liakh said. “They might suggest leaving the neighbourhood altogether or visiting somewhere you would never have searched for. The value of that exchange is the possibility of being surprised by someone who sees the city differently. When we only receive answers to the questions we've already formulated, our own assumptions can end up determining how much of a place we discover.”
Across the survey, 62% of respondents reported having no meaningful conversation with a local during their trip. The figure cannot be attributed solely to AI, but it places the restaurant findings within a broader pattern of limited contact between visitors and residents. Such encounters can introduce perspectives that travellers would have had little reason to seek independently.
The implications extend to how destinations are experienced. Digital recommendations make unfamiliar places easier to navigate, but they also allow visitors to complete more of their journey through decisions made without local participation. The survey captures a revealing contradiction: travellers continue to value the judgement of people who live in a place while increasingly organising their experiences without consulting them. The restaurant they choose may be perfectly satisfactory. The conversation that might have led them somewhere unexpected never takes place.
About Hint App
Hint App is a symbolic, emotional insight platform with over 1.2 million users that combines ancient practices such as astrology, palmistry, and visual soulmate interpretations with modern technology, including artificial intelligence and NASA astronomical data, to deliver highly personalized reports based on a user’s exact birth details. Rather than offering predictions or quick fixes, Hint App serves as a reflective framework, helping individuals map emotional patterns, understand the deeper timing behind personal and relationship decisions, and reconnect with their inner clarity.
Hint App is a symbolic, emotional insight platform with over 1.2 million users that combines ancient practices such as astrology, palmistry, and visual soulmate interpretations with modern technology, including artificial intelligence and NASA astronomical data, to deliver highly personalized reports based on a user’s exact birth details. Rather than offering predictions or quick fixes, Hint App serves as a reflective framework, helping individuals map emotional patterns, understand the deeper timing behind personal and relationship decisions, and reconnect with their inner clarity.