It all starts with a GA. Zurich-born Jon Bollmann (38) is studying in Fribourg. If the lecture material doesn't captivate him, he takes the train or the Postbus to wherever he wants to go, with a coin deciding the direction of travel. That's how Bollmann explores Switzerland, above all Welschland, and on weekends also Ticino. "I've made excessive use of the GA. That's how I got to exciting and fascinating places I would never have traveled to otherwise," he says. "Often, I was rewarded with special discoveries that you won't find in any travel guide."
These discoveries are followed by the realization that Switzerland is a worthwhile destination, especially for Swiss people. During his tours, Bollmann repeatedly comes across travel magazines published by the SBB or tourism associations: "I was always a bit disappointed after reading these booklets. The lifestyle magazines are beautifully made but lack content, the travel magazines contain PR-tinged information and can't always convince in terms of design." So the desire grows in the young Swiss traveler to create a magazine himself that awakens the desire to explore his home country. And satisfies it.
In dubio pro motio
Actually, Bollmann is a lawyer. You could have guessed that on your own, because he likes to debate and uses Latin terms, not only as titles and for sections of his travel magazine, but also when talking about "Helvetica" and its charms. Otherwise, however, Bollmann seems more ambitious than pretentious.
Bollmann was born in Zurich in 1972, the son of a lawyer. The whole family joins in the discussion when his father recounts his disputes at home. "The cases were taken right from life," Bollmann reports. "My father had to figure out where the problem was and find a solution to it. There was a lot of room for interpretation to do that. Jus has a lot to do with communication and rhetoric, which fascinated me and suits me." So Bollmann studies law. With that, Justitia finally won out over Bocuse - before that, Bollmann had long harbored the desire to become a chef. To get away from Zurich for a while and polish up his French, Bollmann starts his law studies in Fribourg. In between, he lives in Siena for a year. He discovers the Italian city and shows his guests secret corners and nooks. "Discovering something, tracking down something special and passing it on to others has always been great fun for me," Bollmann emphasizes. So it was only a matter of time before the early awakened passion became something independent: Transhelvetica, the Swiss magazine for travel culture.
In 2000, after five years of studying law and passing his exams, Bollmann needs a change of pace. In order to air out his head, which was filled with parliaments, he joined the event company x-act. "That was very exciting," says the jack-of-all-trades, "but it still appealed to me to still experience all the law in practice." That's because Bollmann is not only a passionate traveler, explorer and communicator, he's also a full-blooded lawyer. His career path in the law began in 2001 as an auditor at the Zurich District Court, continued in a law firm and finally ended at FIFA's Legal Counsel. There, Bollmann worked from 2004 to 2006 as in-house lawyer, responsible for regulations. "I worked a lot with FIFA's PR and communications department during that time," he says. "Actually, my idea was to switch back to events or communications along the way. But then that wasn't possible."
Bollmann is turning his back on FIFA and concentrating fully on his studies for an Executive Master of Science in Communications Management in Lugano, which he started while working. He then goes to the children's charity Unicef, where he takes on a two-year mandate for a major fundraising campaign. "I spent almost two years preparing the campaign," says Bollmann. "It then ran in 27 locations throughout Switzerland within a week. When that was over, I had the feeling: if you can get something like that off the ground, you can do anything else." So the time was right, and the long-cherished dream came true: In 2009, Bollmann founded Passaport AG, aptly located in a disused train station building, at the old Letten train station in Zurich. For a year, he works on the concept for his travel magazine, and in October 2010, the first issue of Transhelvetica is finally published. "I came close to implementing my idea several times before," Bollmann reports. "But I didn't really dare because I don't come from the media industry. But now the right moment was there." Bollmann thus remains true to his resolution: to have tried everything once. "Because at the end of life," he says, "you don't regret what went wrong, but what you didn't try."
Discovery of everyday life
There are dozens of travel and tourism magazines. But Transhelvetica wants to be different, a Swiss travel magazine for Swiss people. Because many Swiss know least about their own front door. India, Venezuela, Cuba, Australia, Myanmar, Bali, they've seen it all. But Puschlav, Waadtland and Urnäsch? Ömm. Sure, says Bollmann: "As a child, you are forced to go with your godfather or granddaughter to Stein am Rhein, to the Ballenberg, to the Rhine Falls, to the Rigi and to Interlaken. And then at some point you have a trauma from all the Swiss trips." Still, anyone thousands of miles from home - in Sweden, for example - who is approached by random travel acquaintances about the beauty of their homeland and can't join in the conversation should at least read Transhelvetica before their next long-distance trip. "Switzerland is home to breathtaking museums, visionary craftsmen, magnificent landscapes and heavenly boroughs," Bollmann enthuses. "You don't have to travel to London, Berlin or New York for that - and I definitely mean that in a somewhat green-liberal way. Switzerland offers not only green meadows and cows with bells, but also ice deserts like in Alaska, waterfalls like in Burma and steppes like in Africa. You can eat frogs' legs or marmots. And it's not just the blue sky on the Switzerland Tourism advertising brochure that's worth discovering; the low clouds and fog also have their charm." All these facets, especially the unexpected ones, appear in Transhelvetica. In order to arouse curiosity among Swiss readers about their home country
reanimate. Bollmann does not believe that he will ever run out of topics. Even in the first two issues of Transhelvetica, he had to cut out some articles due to lack of space.
Look with all senses
Bollmann wants to tread unknown paths, raise questions and let his readers discover the answers. Even with details. "We don't bring hiking columns with maps and exact directions," he explains. "The travel advice in Transhelvetica is woven into stories. We don't describe how something is, but find out why it is. For example, why in Switzerland a streetlight is a streetlight and not a finely curved candelabra like in Paris. There's a reason for everything. We show which one." That's why readers won't find the classic travel topics in Transhelvetica, but plenty of material for their own discovery tours. Bollmann: "We are primarily aimed at Swiss people. With this focus, even every commute can be a little journey. We should open our eyes, because there's a lot to discover on the street, street art, advertising - or why don't you look at the second floor of all the houses when you go for a walk, take a bus and drive around the whole city for a day?"
Transhelvetica also takes its own appealing approach to small ads. Under the heading "Avantgarde," a different Swiss artist designs a page with eight advertisements for each issue. On the side page, the artist is introduced in a short interview. Bollmann is also having 500 postcards produced from the artful advertisements for each of the eight advertisers, which they can use for their own advertising. "In the coming issues of the magazine, I would like to give art and culture even more space," says Bollmann. "Culture creators are about constantly reinventing themselves. That's very stimulating."
Curiosity as a resolution
Bollmann is founder and managing director of Transhelvetica, as well as publisher, producer, project manager, editor-in-chief and editor. And of course he is the in-house lawyer. Because even though Bollmann has switched to media - he still studies contracts very carefully. "What I enjoy most is the entire organization of the project," he says. "Coordinating various contacts and players, building new partnerships, optimizing distribution, attracting advertisers, inspiring subscribers - I find the entrepreneurial aspect of Transhelvetica particularly exciting." And because he can't do everything on his own, Bollmann has brought on board a marketing woman, a communications strategist and a man for the finances, who is also a photographer. The reportages and articles in the first two issues were mainly written by freelance journalists, but cabaret artist and writer Franz Hohler also contributed articles. Starting in February, a full-time journalist will also join the Transhelvetica team. Finally, in the future the magazine will be published ten times a year instead of six, "and as an absolute premium product," emphasizes Bollmann. In addition, Transhelvetica will in future have a circulation of 30,000 copies instead of the current 11,000, and will be published in other languages, especially English.
Transhelvetica is financed by advertisements, which Bollmann has just handed over to Publicitas. In addition, 400 subscribers currently contribute to sales. Apparently there are buyers for the product, which does not want to fit at all into the range of the currently available press. The magazine is somewhat resistant to the reader; it first has to be conquered, grasped and understood before it can be enjoyed. The magazine also resists the digitalization trend: PDFs of some articles can be found online, but there is no fully-fledged web version. Bollmann is well aware that Transhelvetica also needs an Internet presence to be competitive. But he will only make all articles available online once he has found a concept for earning money with quality on the Internet. Until then, Bollmann plans to provide his readers with a Transhelvetica blog and self-produced videos. Bollmann also has his sights set on cooabization of the magazine.
Not on his to-do list at the moment are an app or the use of augmented reality - by now almost state-of-the-art. The usefulness of Transhelvetica articles should not depend on technical possibilities. "Sure, it's also a question of money," the editor admits. "But we also consciously want to counteract the constant acceleration. Transhelvetica is slow food to be enjoyed, the reader should browse through the magazine in his free time in a comfortable place." Anyone who wants to read Transhelvetica must therefore invest not only ten francs, but above all time. Lovers of instant news who want to quickly call up the most important news via iPhone between Zurich Central and Zurich Main Station are definitely at the wrong address. And it's precisely for this that Bollmann receives a lot of praise: "Readers write us that they find it pleasant that they don't have everything tied directly to their eyes at Transhelvetica, that they can discover the magazine at their own pace and aren't distracted by technical gimmicks."
It is exciting to see how quickly Bollmann's train picks up speed. His journey along the Route of Curiosity has only just begun.
Anne-Friederike Heinrich
