Intrawest CEO Bill Jensen used plain language last week to describe his company’s future in resort real estate while participating in a panel discussion at the annual convention of the National Ski Areas Association in Marco Island, Fla.

Several published reports, including one in the Vail Daily, had Jensen saying the old Intrawest focus had been on real estate for 20 years but, “That went into the toilet, flushed down the sewer and into some ocean, so that business opportunity is truly dead right now.”

The dwindling prospects for Intrawest’s real estate business caused the company to refocus on its primary revenue generators and engage in cost cutting during the winter, Jensen added. The result is that when business comes back, those costs won’t have to be added back into the business model, he said.