He’s sharp, has a mischievous look in his eye, and otherwise gives off the friendly, courteous impression you’d expect from a lobby boy at the Grand Hotel. We are—as connoisseurs of the local hotel industry will of course recognize immediately—at the Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski Dresden, where sophistication and guest-oriented staff are practically part of the DNA. But then something happens that makes everyone smile—except for the hotel’s director: The lobby boy, who had been carrying boxes of stollen the whole time or serving sliced pieces under the golden cloche—this lobby boy is daring; he sits down on the luggage cart full of stollen, takes a thick slice from the plate, and takes a hearty bite! Grounds for termination! Why is he doing that? Well, obviously: because he can—and because he has to! Because, of course, as a viewer of the picture, you can’t help but smile and immediately find yourself craving a hearty bite of Dresden Christmas stollen.
That’s exactly the plan. Because the Lobby Boy at the Grand Hotel can’t be fired—actor Mats Ole Albrecht plays Gustav here, and he just does what he’s told. He’s the face of this year’s campaign by the Dresden Stollen Protection Association, which was just unveiled at the Grand Hotel Taschenbergpalais. Of course, the Lobby Boy and hotel director Marten Schwass were in attendance; they’d already gotten to know each other during the filming in early summer, when temperatures were anything but wintry. Stollen as a little luxury you treat yourself to in everyday life—not just at the luxurious Grand Hotel, because after all, luxury isn’t defined solely by price, but above all by special moments for which you make time. “These are precisely the moments you share with others,” explained Karoline Marschallek, executive director of the Schutzverband, during the campaign presentation. In these fast-paced times, she said, it’s about consciously taking time for one another and for enjoyment.
Even tradition needs new stories
To stay in the conversation, you need (at least) two things: a good product—which, for Dresden’s stollen bakers, goes without saying. But of course, you also have to keep spreading the good news. The Protection Association aims to preserve the tradition of the Dresden Christmas stollen, but doesn’t necessarily rely on familiar Christmas motifs and recurring product images in its communications. The product remains the same, but the narrative changes: in recent years, the focus has been on fairy-tale characters and Christmas scenes, among other things. And now, the Stollen Hotel.
But of course, the campaign is also meant to highlight the bakers’ expertise. Andreas Wippler is a master baker and chairman of the Dresden Stollen Protection Association—and knows the connection between craftsmanship and upscale hospitality from personal experience. He worked as a pastry chef at the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne. Precision, experience, and passion are just as crucial there as they are in the stollen bakeries. However, this experience—some of which dates back generations—does not conflict with the product’s constant evolution. Not faster, farther, higher—but still just a tad more delicious. Unfortunately, it’s also more expensive, as the master bakers themselves say with a shrug: good basic ingredients go into the Stollen—and their prices rarely trend downward. The golden stollen seal, which appears only on stollen certified by the association (and produced here in the region), adorned 5 million stollen during the past stollen season.
So the stollen business is also a (lucrative) venture. “Of course, this is an economic factor for the bakeries and pastry shops here in the city,” says Andreas Wippler, adding: “It’s not without reason that we still have a relatively high density of bakeries and pastry shops in the city relative to our population! That’s largely due to the Dresden Christstollen. But the stollen business also has a ripple effect on entirely different sectors. Figures from Dresden Marketing GmbH underscore the Christstollen’s significance for tourism. Their press spokesperson, Karla Kallauch, shared some statistics: “In December 2025, the Dresden Elbland region recorded around 582,000 overnight stays, and the room occupancy rate in Dresden was 80 percent—13 percentage points above the average for major German cities,” she reported. On the weekend of the Stollen Festival, that figure is topped, with 90 percent occupancy on Friday and 95 percent on Saturday. Marten Schwass confirmed this for the Taschenbergpalais and went one step further: “We’re fully booked for this weekend this year!” A full house, then—and for guests at the end of their visit, there’s usually no question at all about what to buy for the folks back home (or for themselves, as a souvenir): a Stollen.
One last question remains to be answered: Is the lobby boy Gustav serious competition for the Stollen Girl, who has been promoting the Stollen as a brand ambassador for one year at a time since 1995? The baker in his white jacket laughs: no! Gustav is one of a kind—and the Stollen Girl—this year Ruth Liebscher—is selected anew each year from among the apprentices training to become bakers, pastry chefs, or specialty sales associates. That’s as certain as the high-quality ingredients in the Stollen!
