If you ask an AI chatbot where to go for a summer beach break, Croatia is likely to come up. A new study by Zagreb-based media monitoring company Determ found that Croatia appeared in 67% of AI-generated answers to British travellers' questions about seaside holidays — putting it just behind Spain, Greece and Italy.
The research analysed 556 responses from ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, generated by asking 12 common beach holiday questions as a UK user would. Spain led the way with mentions in 71% of answers, with Greece and Italy both at 70%. Portugal followed Croatia at 41%, while Montenegro (20%) and Turkey (19%) trailed.
The platform matters. ChatGPT named Croatia in 80% of its responses — four out of five answers — compared with 67% for Gemini and 53% for Google's AI Overviews. The tone was favourable too: AI descriptions of Croatia scored +70 on a scale from -100 to +100, with the tools pointing to clear Adriatic waters, historic Mediterranean towns, island-hopping and varied nature.
The most interesting part of the study is where the AI tools get their information. Facebook was the most-cited source with 143 citations, ahead of YouTube (100) and Instagram (83). Independent travel media did well — Lonely Planet earned 69 citations and Time Out 62. Official tourism boards, by contrast, barely featured: spain.info managed 34 citations, visitgreece.gr 31, and Croatia's own croatia.hr didn't crack the top 50 cited websites at all.
Determ's chief operating officer Ivor Bihar said British families increasingly ask AI assistants for holiday ideas instead of trawling through search results, and that the sources behind those answers reveal gaps destinations could close. The company's advice to tourism boards: monitor what AI says across platforms and markets, publish clear answers to common traveller questions, and court editorial coverage, guides, social media and video.
For travellers, the takeaway is simpler. AI assistants now do a decent job of surfacing the usual Mediterranean suspects, and Croatia's strong showing reflects a well-earned reputation rather than marketing muscle. But recommendations drawn heavily from social media and big-name guides may skew towards the same well-trodden spots — Dubrovnik's walls, Hvar's beaches — so it's still worth digging beyond the first answer, and destinations outside the big seven in this comparison may simply be invisible to the algorithms.
Determ is quick to caveat the findings: seven countries, a short study window in October, and results that could shift with different questions, platforms or markets. Early signals, not a definitive ranking. Still, as a snapshot of how holiday inspiration is changing, it's telling that a national tourist board's own website matters less to ChatGPT than a Facebook post.
