Laurence Geller has never been one to mince words.

It was no different during a keynote luncheon address at the inaugural Midwest Lodging Investors Summit last week in Chicago. Geller, the president and CEO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, told attendees there is only one way for hoteliers to make it through the current economic slowdown.

"Manage it. Get over it. Don't look backwards. Look forward," he said. "It's the reality of the world. The demographics haven't changed. Gen Xers, Gen Yers, baby boomers don't want to stop traveling."

Geller said the hotel industry will find new economic models to manage its way through the downturn. Believing that the glass is half-full, Geller said he looks forward to a rebound.

"There are good times ahead," he said. "I cannot tell you when."

He did say that he expects 2009 to be weaker than 2008--so a rebound won't occur until at least 2010. There is one tell-tale sign of a turnaround, according to Geller.

"Marriott (International) is a pretty good barometer (of the hotel industry)," he said.

But he likened the current state of the country to the early 1990s when the savings and loan financial industry went through turbulence similar to what banks are experiencing today. He said when that crisis passed, the hotel industry responded with double-digit RevPAR growth and went into one of its most successful periods ever.

"The choice you've got to make: Are we in a cyclical world, or, because of the bleakness of the last few weeks, are you going to make the assumption that there is a new paradigm," Geller said.

Geller also said the slowing new supply pipeline is going to be a tremendous boost for the industry when the inevitable upturn occurs.

"The reality is the 2.5 percent or 3 percent supply (increase) is largely coming in the midmarket and upscale franchised markets," he said. "Yes, there is more stuff coming on the corner, but it is replacing stuff that is obsolete--not because it's old, but because the product is not working in the market."

Geller said that construction is an impossible scenario at the present time.

"The only thing that's cheap is land, and land doesn't make up that big of a piece of hotel development any more," he said.

But perhaps the most interesting thoughts shared by Geller, who has been known to battle hotel franchisors on many fronts, were those about branded hotel companies.

"The branded hotel companies have grown a lot smarter," he said. "The hotel chains are doing a hell of a good job. They get it. We may have dull bean-counter leadership, but they get it."

He said average daily rates might drop, but not because hotel operators will resort to cutting the prices--it will be a mix of business changes that cause the drop.

In the end, Geller said hoteliers simply must not get caught up in a pessimistic approach. After all, he said, it could be worse. Try sitting in his chair for a day.

"Being a publicly-traded company is like going to a dentist and proctologist every day--at the same time," he said.

Leave it to Laurence to call it like it is.