"The calendar offers Winterthur producers, restaurateurs and hoteliers a personal platform"

For the second year in a row, Winterthur has its own Advent calendar: a wide variety of prizes are hidden behind the wintry Christmas market hidden object, all of which revolve around the theme of "Enjoyment in Winterthur". However, the focus is not on the prizes themselves, but on the Winterthur producers, hoteliers and restaurateurs behind them, says project manager Alessia Baumgartner. In a brief interview, she explains how this year's Winterthur Advent calendar came about.

Project manager Alessia Baumgartner is delighted with the uncomplicated cooperation with all partners.

The winter Advent calendar theme was illustrated by Samuel Schumacher from Winterthur.

The motto of this year's Advent calendar is "Enjoyment in Winterthur". Why was this focus chosen?
Last year, the Winterthur Advent calendar was only created as a result of the coronavirus crisis, and at the time we primarily offered a stage for cultural professionals with the calendar. This year, the catering and hotel industry had to overcome many different challenges due to the Covid measures. For this reason, and because the topic of enjoyment and culinary delights is always well received, we wanted to offer a platform to various producers, stores, restaurateurs and hoteliers with our 2021 calendar. At the same time, we also wanted to spoil the competition participants with varied moments of indulgence every day.

How did you go about selecting the partners?
At House of Winterthur, we are committed to the entire Winterthur region - so it was also important to us to put together a tasty mix of personal stories and quality prizes from the city and region for the Advent calendar. We wanted to introduce people and their exciting crafts and create genuine, authentic experiences around enjoyment and culinary delights that will be remembered. It was also important to us that values such as regionality, naturalness and sustainability are lived across all the prizes.

What feedback have you received from partners and participants?
It is a great pleasure to see how cooperative and motivated the partners have reacted to the Advent calendar - the personal contact and the joint support creates a strong sense of togetherness, which in my opinion is what makes Winterthur what it is. The numbers of participants speak for themselves: last year, almost 2,000 people took part in the last, 24th door of the competition. This year, we started with the same number of participants for the 1st door.