Be warned, though: many mid-priced hotels represent a severe case of style over substance, and rooms at some budget hotels can be grim.

For a couple wishing to stay in mid-priced hotels, dine out once or twice a day and perhaps hire the occasional guide or go on guided tours, expect to pay €60 to €100 per day total, excluding travel.

"Our strategy is to try to bring mid-priced hotels into the Manhattan urban market, but to do so with a bit of flair," he said.

It also has the Reliance Centre and many mid-priced hotels and noted Irani cafe, Britannia.

Sunvil (020 8758 4758, www.sunvil.co.uk) Big programme of mid-priced hotels and apartments away from the main resorts; Andros, Mykonos and fashionable Hydra are new; good for mainland fly-drives.

In between the station and the Cathedral, this clean mid-priced hotel starts at about €80 (£64) a double.

"As the more expensive hotels lost convention business, they started going after our airline or tourist business with lower rates," said Kenneth I. Walles, general manager of the Hotel Pennsylvania, a mid-priced hotel.

There is a large market for mid-priced hotels (about $30 to $35 a person a night), which is currently neglected by European hoteliers, he added.

Accor already operates the Novotel New York, a mid-priced hotel on Broadway and 51st Street.

The company eventually owned mid-priced hotels under the Holiday Inn, Sheraton, Days, Hilton and Marriott names among others.