Plagiarism in tourism is unnecessary by those lacking creative talent
We have just discovered that a local Blue Mountains new tour operator seems to have ‘borrowed’ our brochure design for their own use.
Last Thursday whilst holidaying a few nights in Medlow Bath (yes a long way from our place at Katoomba, not); we sauntered from our stay for about a kilometre across to the Hydro Majestic Hotel there and wandered through its interconnecting venues to its ‘Salon Du The‘ for an evening cocktail.
Famous ‘Cat’s Alley’ in the Hydro’s ‘Salon Du The’.
By the fire place beyond we skimmed though a visitor information table providing guests with the daily newspapers and tourist brochures and then saw the said brochure amongst. We reproduce it below for the sole purpose of review (comparison and contrast to our brochure) so that readers may be judge for themselves.
Out of the Blue‘s brochure, and it has nothing to do with Nature Trail in any way:
It would seem this venture has been started from 2026.
Whereas the following is our Nature Trail‘s brochure:
Fact is that this our brochure was publicly released and distributed by Nature Trail at selected outlets from October 2019 (note our copyright stamp bottom right).
Frankly, we don’t object to the similarities in the layout and colouring, and we note a lot of dissimilarities in the tour offerings from ours.
We do pose the comparison question
Our Review:
We compare and contrast these two brochures, mentioning that ours was designed some seven years prior.
(1) Both brochures DL sized – as per standard
(2) Colour schemes white text on dark blue background are almost identical
(3) Title fonts almost identical
(4) Descriptive subtext below title – ditto
(5) Then lead image design
(6) Contact info at bottom
Now, we are pleased that this new venture offers quite different activities to that of Nature Trail, which is encouraging – more visitor tourism services the better for the Blue Mountains!
The contrasts between these two brochures are:
(1) Nature Trail does not do Point-To-Point transport such as “6 Foot Track drop off/pick up“. We do lead hike the 42km track itself however and in both directions and with stays options. We had risked the taxi (drop off/pick up) thing after the pandemic that threatened to cost us $110,000 in fines from the New South Wales government’s Transport for NSW Point to Point Transport Commissioner some years back. [READ MORE]
(2) Nature Trail does not offer wine tours; more than happy for others to do so, like even Blue Mountains Council promotes ‘Out of The Blue’ to Megalong wineries – what a score!
^https://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/saturday-megalong-valley-wine-tasting
“Saturday Megalong Valley Wine Tasting“
“With a local expert handling the driving, you can sit back, enjoy the Megalong Valley views, and discover boutique cellar doors whose wines aren’t widely available elsewhere (but, luckily, they can also deliver new favourites you may discover!).
SAMPLE ITINERARY
from 9:00am – FREE bag storage available at Blue Mountains Bag Storage, Katoomba,
10:30am Depart Katoomba train station, Goldsmith Place
~10:40am Pick up from outside Hydro Majestic Hotel
~10:45am Pick up Blackheath train station, Highway side
Wine tastings at Dryridge Estate & Megalong Creek Estate
3:15-3:30pm Arrive back at Katoomba train station”
Other tour operators do similar (click hyperlinks below):
^https://www.fantastic-aussie-tours.com.au/blue-mountains-wine-tours/
^https://shiraztours.com.au/tours-2/tours-bluemountains/
^https://www.bluemountainsstargazing.com.au/wine-stargazing
(3) Nature Trail does not offer drop offs/pick up to other atractions so mentioned like Zig Zag Railway (we hiked that once), nor for fruit picking nor craft beverages.
Nature Trail does however offer bespoke private small group tours seasonally to open gardens such as to Mayfield Garden, Mount Wilson (Windyridge, Breenhold, Nooroo, Merry Garth, Kashmir and Bebeah), Mount Tomah and Everglades House and Gardens plus to many others by private prior arrangement.
Concerning tour brochures, we do question why not create something unique to the business, since there are a lot of design concepts that should make a business different from others around. There are also a miriad of visitation attractions and options available throughout the Blue Mountains region, and we note that the content is very distinctly different to that of Nature Trail’s brochure.
We point out that Nature Trail’s brochure is double-sided with the same colour scheme design on both sides.
Our creative design took us some thought and time. We created it on our home computer, and then of course there was the printing cost to produce.
Business creativity evolves over time, and Nature Trail is no different in that sense. Our logo has evolved from the original pair of natural bird mates flying from left to right. Our business motto ‘Back to Nature’ prevails since its conception.
We do welcome competition and for a thriving tour industry to encourage greater quality visitation to the Greater Blue Mountains.
Best however that design concepts should make a business different from others around. This is the respectful standard that we took when designing our brochure aware of what was out there in the Blue Mountains tourism industry/market. A franchise in the Blue Mountains, Design Heroes in Katoomba offers brochure design consulting services.
In Australia, the tour business of ‘Nature Trail’ was conceived by its founder, Steven Ridd (Steve), on Tuesday 10th December 2013. On that day the business name was registered by Steven with ASIC and paid for, and the domain naturetrail.com.au registered same day as well. So, off and running!
This was during a time when Steve was undertaking education and training in outdoor recreation, driving tour buses yet again (initially 1990-1992), and investing in the business setup (admin, licensing, research, etc) with the intention of launching his tour operation once it was properly setup and ready to trade.
It took us seven years from concept to official commercial launch in August 2019. Small business owners will relate to such a business setup timeframe. A lot of thought, personal savings, effort, planning and intellectual property is invested in business startups.
As part of that setup, in 2016 Steve also as Tour Director started designing the marketing of his tour venture. This involved conceiving, designing and modifying a logo and motto, website design, business cards and brochures. Such marketing components are pretty standard fair in order to distinguish one’s business from others, and also serving to provide an image and information about what the business is about to potential customers.
Our flying black cockatoo logo was stolen recently by Blue Mountains Council i its outsourced Grand Cliff Top Walk signage project.
Well we’ve moved on from that, yet made it well known about the theft of our intellectual property. We consider plagarism quite sad really. Every individual surely possesses creative talent.