Two wine tour companies are about to launch in Queenstown’s Gibbston Valley, but one is accusing the other of plagiarism. Hop on Hop off Wine Tours, based in Marlborough, claim that Queenstown Wine Trail and its Wine Hopper Bus copied their idea before going on to claim that they were Queenstown’s first hop-on-hop-off service.
"I just thought, this is not the right thing to do because they knew I was coming, and they copied the idea," said Hop on Hop off Wine Tours owner Juliearna Kavanagh. "I had to slap them with a legal letter, and then they had to pull that stuff on social media. "Of course I wanted to be first – it’s my baby. To be honest, competition's healthy, I just think there are right ways and wrong ways to do things."
Queenstown Wine Trail co-managing director Heather McDonald didn’t want to comment.
“We just play our game and play our game really well. I just don't want to get into silly 'who-says-what', or 'did what' or 'did what when' – we have masses of competition. She can feel what she likes, but you know what I feel is we all work hard for a living.”
