Perhaps surprisingly, there’s a lot of consensus at this year’s Lodging Conference, the annual hotel industry gathering that’s underway at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. Nearly every speaker, attendee and hanger-on talks about when—not if—the national economy and the hotel industry will shake its current troubles. With the news of a potential bailout of the nation’s mortgage meltdown swirling, most attendees believe eventually the credit markets will right themselves, hotel development and M&A will continue and travel demand will rebound. The question of when is unclear, however.

Attendees uniformly talked about the difficulties of accessing financing for new lodging projects and acquisitions. Small Business Administration lending is still active, but nearly all larger loans either come with prohibitively restrictive terms or just aren’t available. But unless the economy faces more volcanic shocks like it has in the past few weeks, most believe financing will loosen sometime during late next year or early 2010.

“Financing is still out there, but it’s more expensive,” said Monty Bennett, president & CEO of Ashford Hospitality Trust. “The bailout plan under discussion in Washington would allow banks to start lending again, which would be good for our business. The question is how soon the lending could start once the bailout goes into effect.”

Bennett and others on a general session panel on Thursday morning agreed that the development pipeline is bound to slow, at least in certain segments, such as upscale and higher. Yet Steve Joyce, president & CEO of Choice Hotels, believes it’s a good time to build.

“It’s probably the best construction environment in 10 years,” said Joyce in an interview. “The costs of materials and land is down, reasonable contracts are available and labor is plentiful. And by building now, developers will be able to open properties as we hit the upturn.”

While many of Choice’s products can be built for less than $10 million and can get financed by local banks, the company is offering incentives to developers willing to buy the more-costly Cambria Suites brand as well as Choice’s extended-stay brands, Suburban and MainStay Suites.