A combination of growing demand from business travelers and a souring economy have led hotel developer Accor to focus on mid-range hotels in the world's largest countries. So far in India, the formula seems to be a good one. As the country grows economically, more people will be traveling there for business purposes. Smaller businesses or independent entrepreneurs who don't want to spring for a 5-star room have few options. Accor's budget brand, Ibis, has already opened one location in Gurgaon. The company also has two Novotels in Hyderabad. These hotels are focused on providing solid service with a few extras, but nothing in terms of the over-the-top luxury seen at a 4 or 5-star. The strategy is to be attractive both to domestic and international business travelers.

Currently, over half of Accor's India bookings come directly from corporate buyers seeking bulk rates. However, the mid-range prices and services could be attractive to independent travelers seeking an economical alternative to India's current hotel options.

Hopefully you're an avid Gadling reader. With popular features like The Cockpit Chronicles and Galley Gossip and helpful tips on new travel gadgets and which destinations to avoid, how could you not be?

Ok, enough with the shameless self-promotion; we're obviously not the only travel website out there. The Times Online just published an article on the 10 travel websites to watch for October. The list is a good combination of sites that give you everything from dirty pilot rumors to tips on staying slim while on the road. Keep in mind that since it's from the Times Online, the list has an English twist - many of the sites are Britain related.

Check them out yourself:

1. Professional Pilots' Rumour Network - check out the topic "nicest celebs" for the inside scoop
2. Seatplans.com - aircraft seating plans and flight reviews
3. Thetrainline.com - find cheap tickets in the UK and on Eurostar
4. Hotels.com Visualiser - custom select your ideal hotel and the site finds on that matches
5. Mr. & Mrs. Smith route planner - plan your itinerary with the site's tips on local pubs, etc.
6. Virgin Holidays + Hip Hotels - uber stylish hotels for the glitterati
7. Slimtree - fitness workouts you can download and use on the road
8. Trivago a new travel search engine
9. RogerandRandy.com - business travel experts give their two cents
10. Great Hotels of the World -the name says it all
    

When inspectors from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture responded to a consumer complaint at the Holiday Inn in Lancaster County, they were surprised by what they found -- but given the hotel's laundry list of offenses, perhaps it shouldn't have been such a shock.

When the hotel's walk-in refrigerator failed, they moved its contents to a guest room for cooling. The room's air conditioner was turned all the way down to 65 degrees -- 24 degrees higher than the maximum temperature allowed by state public health guidelines. This is but one of many ridiculous incidents that begs the question: Why is this Holiday Inn still open?

On the same day of the food inspection, Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement officers searched the hotel and found that it was selling liquor without a license, and had been doing so for over a year, when ownership changed hands and the new owners never sought to renew the liquor license.

The problems don't end there.

Unless you know someone in New York City well enough to crash on their sofa, chances are a huge portion of your Big Apple travel budget will go towards a hotel room. That is unless you don't mind sleeping with three strangers.

Manhattan's Broadway Hostel offers a bed in a dorm-style room for under $40 per night. Booking before October 1st will earn you a $38 per night bill and a free cocktail. With gas prices still so high these days, that's actually cheaper than coming to New York and sleeping in your car.

"Hostel" is akin to a swear word amongst non-budget travelers and anyone over 23. Sure, sharing a room with strangers is not what many people would consider comfortable. (Sharing a bathroom is not what many people would consider sanitary.) But the Broadway is ever bit the hip haunt its upper west side location suggests. The rooms are tastefully decorated with furniture that was designed after the Ford presidency (after the Clinton presidency even) and there are regular hotel room extras like shampoo and soap in the bathroom. Anyway you cut it, that's a pretty swell deal.

Summer might be over, but it's never out of season to take a road trip down the Oregon Coast. From summer sunshine to winter storms, following the Oregon's Pacific coastline by way of Highway 101 provides for spectacular views, quirky stops and more fish and chips than you could ever want. Here's your quick and dirty guide to making the best of it.

Getting started
Before you take off for the coast, spend a few days exploring Portland. Oregon's largest city is known for its coffee culture, diverse array of restaurants and excellent microbrews; definitely the ideal place to kick off your road trip. Stop by Powells to pick up a map and even a guidebook to the coast; although driving down 101 is pretty straightforward -- just go straight -- it's nice to know what towns you're going through and where state and county parks are located so you can play on the beach.

With the economy in the crapper, hotels are really struggling for your business. Some of them are getting creative with their special offers, like the Wine and Bitch weekend at The Resort at Paws Up in Montana.

For the weekend of November 14-16, you and your dog are invited to this special getaway. Your stay will include three gourmet meals each day, wine tastings from Mutt Lynch Winery, and luxury accommodations. For the dogs, there's a canine fashion show, dog parade, and lots of handmade treats. You can also attend doggie seminars on training and wellness.

$1,392 pays for three days and two nights for two humans and one pup at Paws Up. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, the resort offers spa treatments, horseback rides, wilderness adventures, and some of America's best fly fishing.

It's gimmicky, sure, but it actually sounds like a nice vacation. So often traveling means putting pets up in kennels and suffering through a guilt trip when you return home. It's nice to have the opportunity to pamper yourself without leaving your best friends behind.

I picked this photo because it encapsulates the very points that makes travel so incredibly interesting. It's those details that make you shake your head and say, "What were they thinking?" And you have no idea what they were thinking because people don't always think alike. What makes sense to the people who live in a particular country can seem stupid to those not from there--or at least nonsensical--except that it could make sense. Kind of.

According to Damiel who took this picture, this billboard is on the hotel building where he was staying in Bratislava. His room is behind the letters "o" and "u" in "navigáciou." I wonder if that means that he could look out through the "o" and the "u"? Or were the windows covered over? Either choice seems odd.

If you have a photo you'd like for us to consider for Photo of the Day, send it our way at Gadling's Flickr Photo Pool.

By the way, I'm dedicating this Photo of the Day to my fellow Gadling bloggers. It's an inside joke.

Cities like Hong Kong are known for their 5-star hotels. They are so known for these monuments to luxury that visitors might think that there are no 4,3,2, or 1 star options in the city. They'd almost be right. Not only does Hong Kong have highest population density in the world, it probably has the highest density of 5-star inns. Of course there are cheaper places to lay your head. But a new trend in the hotel game means you won't have to put up with the shifty characters of Tsim Sha Tsui's Chungking Mansions if you want a cheap room. Plenty of boutique hotels and mid-range chains are offering rooms for between $50-$100 per night.

Holiday Inn Express and Courtyard by Marriott are getting in on the mid-range hotel boom in Honkers, aiming their service at businesspeople not on an expense account who don't want to pay 5-star prices. Boutique hotels like Hotel Jen (HK Island), Panorama (Kowloon) and Cosmo (Wan Chai) are part of the new trend as well. These places are all clean, well-furnished and tech friendly. They are centrally located. Most have a pool, exercises facilities and a hip vibe. Sure, they are not equipped to handle any outlandish request like luxury hotels are, but you don't really need to smoke your hand rolled cigar while sitting in a bath filled with rose petals. Do you?

Most people steer clear of anything rumored "haunted," but some curious supernaturalists seek these places out. Bedandbreakfast.com has a list of over 100 haunted inns in the United States, as well as a long list of Halloween specials for paranormal enthusiasts.

Visitors to the Honeybee Inn B&B in Horicon, Wisconsin (pictured) may feel the presence of a former resident named Coton and his female companions. The rocking chair where he died is said to rock on its own, and the owners have reported sightings of a female spirit.

The Black Horse Inn in Warrenton, Virginia is home to four spirits: a Civil War nurse who laughs in the ears of male guests, a dancing gentleman whose tapping steps can be heard throughout the night at the top of the stairs, a gentle ghost who simply likes to sit in one room, leaving impressions in the bedspread, and a Christmas poltergeist, who enjoys knocking over the Christmas tree each year.

Emerson Inn by the Sea in Rockport, Massachusetts is said to be haunted by Ralph Waldo Emerson himself, who turns on and off the lights and appears to guests as a shadowy figure. Emerson was a former guest of this inn -- perhaps it was such an inspiring place that he keeps returning.

These are just some of the dozens of ghost stories available at Bedandbreakfast.com. Find a haunted inn near you when you visit this page, and let us know if you see or hear anything spooky!

If you need further evidence that there is pretty much nothing above a lawsuit in the United States these days, I give you the case of Lizzie Borden.

Yes, that Lizzie Borden, the woman thought to have taken an ax to her stepmother and father back in 1892.

One of the first "celebrity" trials in U.S. history, her story captivated the nation. She was acquitted of the crime, but she has nevertheless been a favorite among the ghoul-loving tourists who seek out the spots where weird things have happened.

Now about the lawsuit.

Lizzie Borden lived in Fall River, Massachusetts, which has embraced the grisly murders that happened there more than 110 years ago as something of a tourist attraction. You can stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, the very Victorian mansion where the murders occurred. You can actually sleep in the room where Borden's stepmother was found all hacked up.

But Fall River is not the only Massachusetts community that wants a piece of the Borden pie these days. Farther north in the town of Salem, not exactly a stranger to weird things, a museum has recently opened dedicated to the Borden story. It originally was named the "Lizzie Borden Museum," and though it has changed its name to merely "The True Story of Lizzie Borden," the Salem museum's Web site still has the address www.lizziebordenmuseum.com.

There, folks, lies the problem.

The general manager of Fall River's cozy little Borden bed and breakfast, Donald Woods, is suing Salem's Borden museum for trademark infringement, since the Fall River B&B owns the rights to the moniker "Lizzie Borden Museum."

So, who owns the Borden story? Can you actually claim a patent on an historical event?

All that stuff is at issue as these two Borden attractions duke it out in the coming months. Followers of the Borden legend -- and there seem to be a lot of them out there -- say both the Lizzie Borden B&B and the True Story of Lizzie Borden have a lot to offer interested tourists, including memorabilia and conspiracy theories (did Borden stand to benefit from the fat insurance policy on her father and stepmother?).

The B&B really tries to sell itself. Guests can eat "a hot breakfast reminiscent of the food the Borden's ate on that fateful" day, its Web site says.

Of course, anyone who knows Fall River, and its neighbor New Bedford (where Borden was tried and acquitted) will tell you that even today, if you get caught in the wrong area it really can be murder.