Get pregnant at this hotel chain and they’ll throw you a party
By Maureen O’Hare, CNN
(CNN) — In this week’s roundup of travel news: an Italian town has introduced a tourist tax for dogs, a New Yorker who moved to Italy and met her future husband, plus a Polish hotelier who wants to boost his country’s birth rate by hosting celebrations for expectant couples.
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Sometimes serious times require fun measures.
In common with many countries around the world, including the US, Poland is facing a declining fertility rate. In 2023, it recorded 1.2 live births per woman, down from 2.06 in 1990.
In a bid to increase his nation’s number of rug rats, Władysław Grochowski, owner of one of Poland’s biggest hotel chains, has pledged to throw a party for every couple who conceives while staying at his properties.
There are 23 Arche hotels across Poland, from Lublin to Wrocław, with more than 4,000 rooms in which babies may be made.
Eligible couples will receive a complimentary family celebration in one of its event rooms or restaurants. The family of the first baby to be born through the program will also get a stroller and a welcome package.
Don’t ditch the birth control just yet, though. Couples must also reside in Poland and at least one of the parents needs to be a Polish citizen.
Arche isn’t the first hotel brand to offer perks for people planning a steamy night.
In 2020, Canadian chain Hotel Zed offered free stays for couples who made Valentine’s Day babies, and in 2024, New York’s Walker Hotel Tribeca offered a “self-love” package for customers who took matters into their own hands.
Community and connection
New Yorker Caroline Chirichella moved in 2014 to a little village near Naples, Italy, in search of somewhere she “could live life to the fullest and become a part of a community.” Now she’s happily married to an Italian man and is a mom to two children.
She created her own “version of happiness,” she tells CNN.
Anesu Masebe found his own unexpected version of happiness just before Christmas 2017, when he flew home from Washington, DC, to Zimbabwe after receiving the devastating news that his mother had passed away.
He spent the flight talking with seatmate Hannah Brown, who’d lost her own father at Christmas two years before. “She could relate to what I was going through,” says Masube. “It was such a moment I really needed, and didn’t even recognize that I needed at the time.”
The pair got married in 2019. Read their story here.
Epic adventure
Father-and-son duo George and Josh Kohler are cycling around the world. They’ve already made it to Thailand, after leaving their home in England in March this year.
The Kohlers have their eye on achieving three Guinness World Records and have a personal goal of covering 60 miles a day. Josh tells CNN that they hope “to inspire everyone to do small adventures, big adventures; just get out of their comfort zone.”
They aren’t the only multi-generational adventurers who’ve been making headlines recently.
A father and daughter, 102-year-old Kokichi Akuzawa and 70-year-old Motoe, climbed Mount Fuji in August, along with family and friends. Akuzawa is now the oldest person to ever have climbed Japan’s tallest mountain, having broken his own record, which he previously set when he ascended Fuji at 96.
House of wax
The Beijing branch of the 190-year-old wax museum chain Madame Tussauds closed permanently this week. It follows the shuttering in recent years of the museum brand’s locations in San Francisco, Istanbul and Washington, DC.
The audience for wax museums is melting away in the digital age, when posing with a static dummy has come to feel rather quaint. However, Beijing resident Joseph Ding remains a fan. He tells CNN, “Even though the wax statues were fake, it’s still a pity to lose the channel to communicate with them.”
In case you missed it
As the US federal government shutdown drags on, TSA agents are working without getting paid.
At the time of writing, the shutdown was likely to extend into next week.
Two couples bumped into each other in a taxi line in the Bahamas.
It kick-started a friendship of 40 years.
An Italian town has introduced a tourist tax for dogs.
The canine clampdown is proving controversial.
London to Sweden for the day.
These travelers are embracing extreme day trips.
The-CNN-Wire
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