“I completely forgot about you!”, Anita Stocker apologizes when you enter the inn of the same name in Landsham at 10 a.m. One cannot blame the district chairman of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), who has been in office since May: She has just finished a strenuous early shift and should now actually redistribute housekeeping from the inn to the hotel because someone has fallen ill. And right now, when the rooms and dining room are often fully booked again, because there is so much catching up to do in business and private life.
Improvising is Stocker’s speciality, and she didn’t even shy away from temporary hospitality in a tent
A short meeting with the shift manager and a quick change of clothes later, the woman in her mid-forties is back with perfect make-up in a dark blue dirndl with a smart pink apron. It didn’t take a quarter of an hour – the woman is obviously used to surprises and improvisation. No wonder, when she was heavily pregnant and, in 2004, together with her husband Melchior, transformed his parents’ inn into a charming inn with accommodation – and kept the inn running in a tent in the courtyard during the conversion work.
A career in gastronomy was not in the cradle of the Ottersberg native – although “there are at least six to eight hostesses in the maternal line alone”. In addition, Stocker had been a waiter as a teenager and even earned the money for her first motorcycle as a young woman. Nevertheless, before she entered the hospitality industry, “I kind of married her with her,” Stocker trained as a bank clerk – which she now benefits from, as she is well versed in the various accounting matters and, above all, the small print of loan agreements.
Many companies had to take out loans during the pandemic, and Dehoga offers legal advice
It’s not just the Stockers who have seen this more often in recent years than the innkeepers would have liked. In order to be able to continue paying wages and cover fixed costs during the pandemic, after government aid had been promised but was far from being paid, numerous restaurateurs had to use up their reserves and take out loans. According to Stocker, if some of the breweries hadn’t suspended lease payments in their restaurants or provided support with extras such as free beer during this particularly difficult time, more businesses would probably have gone down the drain than was already the case. However, she does not have exact figures on this, especially since some of the companies were non-Dehoga members.
However, the new district chairman has a pleasing number ready: the number of members in the Ebersberg district has increased by around eight percent since the beginning of the pandemic, to almost 90 companies. The range is large and extremely diverse: from small guesthouses to hotels with more than 120 rooms, from pure inns to mixed operations, as is the case in Landsham. The services of the “outstanding umbrella organization” Dehoga Bayern are available to all of them. In addition to his main task, namely legal advice on personnel matters, as well as arranging numerous discounts on Gema, car leasing or insurance, he provided extensive material during the pandemic. From checklists and factual information to form templates or sample signs to set up in your own restaurant or hotel.
For this reason, Stocker, who took on the post after careful consideration and initial hesitation in view of the current challenges and the additional work involved, sees her task during the three-year term not so much in passing on information as in networking among the members. An important step in this direction is the newly established hosts’ get-together, the first of which will be held this Thursday, August 4th, at 2 p.m. in the Hotel Restaurant Haflhof in Münster (near Glonn). The members should also exchange information about what worked particularly well for them during the pandemic, especially with regard to a possible new edition of the 2-G or 3-G regulation in autumn, which everyone feared.
In the hospitality industry, an image change is needed to counteract the extinction
Participation in the “Round Table Tourism” of the district office is also extremely important for Stocker, whose representative Alexandra Holzfurtner expressly praises the “close and good cooperation with Dehoga”. She is very happy about the participation of representatives of the association in various projects, which are now possible again. Especially since the number of guest arrivals (2021: 97,894) and overnight stays (2021: 247,935) is now clearly on an upward trend again after the sharp drop of around 50 percent in 2020.
The heart of Stocker, mother of two sons, is undoubtedly an image change of the hospitality industry: “I want to raise the status of gastronomy among the population in order to inspire young people and future trainees to work in the hospitality industry. Without young people, the craft will die out!” However, the appreciation for this industry must be increased simply because it is of central importance for events in the field of tradition and culture. “None of this works without gastronomy, everything is networked.”
You can tell that Anita Stocker really puts her heart and soul into her job – is there still room for leisure activities such as hiking in the mountains, which she loves so much? She takes her time, it’s important to her. “Organization is everything. And it only works if, like me, you have hard-working employees who do something for you.”
Her second big hobby also has something to do with her job: After her wine supplier, the Franconian winery Schmitt in Bergtheim, brought her together, Stocker has been involved in a brotherhood since 2019. He beat the Landsham restaurateur in April 2022 in the Spreewald to the “wine knight”. The association undertakes two wine excursions a year – one in Germany and one abroad.
Here Anita Stocker from the Gasthof Stocker in Landsham is beaten to the “wine knight”.
(Photo: private/oh)
Many of the other 160 members of the order from all over Germany also come from the hospitality industry, but there are also wine lovers from other sectors, such as large industrialists, a casino director or the head of a large bank. “All very likeable and normal people when you talk to them,” says the cheerful Landshamerin.
It’s easy to imagine how the landlady behaves in the Order – certainly not one whit different than now, during the conversation in the new room in front of the counter area, which quickly became the favorite spot of many guests. Not only those who are waiting for a taxi, want to read the newspaper comfortably or watch a football game on the monitor behind the reception feel incredibly comfortable on the bar stools upholstered in soft leather. The local youth, ie the 20 to 25 year olds, who drop by in groups of three or four for a few spare ribs before going out, also love this place to see and be seen.
There are many problems: the bureaucracy, the lack of staff and unfair competitive pressure
According to Stocker, this is what you have to pay attention to in hotels and restaurants: just as this lobby is a bridge between the hotel and the dining room, between the grown core of the inn and the now 17-year-old “new building”, you have to continuously look for the connection between tradition in the industry and modernity to be able to survive. Despite a large number of regulations – “you almost need legal counsel to create the menu with all the ingredients”. Despite the constant shortage of staff – “at least 50 percent to blame for the fact that we had to give up the hall”. Despite competitive pressure from providers such as Airbnb, which is a big thorn in the side of Stocker and Dehoga: “They don’t register people, you don’t know who is staying. But above all: We pay a lot of taxes and observe all the requirements, from fire protection to ventilation that doesn’t!”
In the end it becomes clear that what Anita Stocker said about her position as district chairperson also applies to her existence as an innkeeper: “I like doing it – but I also want to do it well!”