Free Christening parties are being offered to couples who conceive during their stay at a hotel chain in Poland.

There’s more – each employee will be paid a bonus of over €2,000 for every child they have.

That’s an initiative launched by Polish hotel chain Arche and its 73-year-old owner in an effort to boost the country’s low birth rates.

Poland’s fertility rate of 1.2 children per woman in 2023 is among the weakest in the EU, with only Malta, Spain and Lithuania behind it.

Financial Times’ correspondent Raphael Minder said anyone who can produce a hotel bill nine months before the birth of their child will get a free Christening part for up to 10 people.

“It doesn’t need to be a religious celebration, it can be secular,” he told Moncrieff.

“But essentially you can have a boozy luncheon event at the hotel to celebrate the birth of your kid.

“As long as you’ve had that kids nine months before and you have a bill to show that.”

Man holding up baby son in field. Image: Connect Images / Alamy. 30 September 2015

Mr Minder explained that Arche is the biggest private hotel chain in Poland.

“They have 23 hotels across the country, and any member of staff who has a kid will get a bonus of roughly €2,200 per child,” he said.

“It’s a problem that the owner of the hotel chain Mr Grochowski, has been worrying about for a long time.

“He basically feels that the demographics of Poland are terrible and are as much of a threat to Poland’s future economic health as some of the more headline topics of the moment, like Russia.

“So, what he’s saying is essentially that, yes, he’s bringing his little humorous publicity stunt, but the authorities have to get much more serious about the issue.”

'Financially complicated'

According to Mr Minder, while this problem is common across western countries, the issue is “particularly pronounced in a lot of the Catholic countries”.

“It’s heavily linked to the depopulation of the countryside, people moving to Warsaw,” he said.

“A bit like they’re probably moving to Dublin and finding it much harder to get decent housing in expensive and crowded cities.

“So, the prospect of having to have an extra room for your kid is just financially complicated.

“At the same time, what’s also striking is Poland has actually been pretty generous in terms of child benefit schemes, but that’s done nothing to reverse the trend.”

Mr Minder said that the core issue is Poles feel having a child in the current economic climate is “sort of a middle-income trap”.

Main image: A mother holds her baby on a park bench, Alamy.