Callaway Gardens Photo
Azaleas bloom in the Overlook Garden at the Callaway Gardens attraction in Pine Mountain, Ga. The financially troubled resort is cutting some jobs and will close for a week or more in early January to save money.PINE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – After selling more than half of its 13,000 acres last year, Callaway Gardens is taking new actions to cut costs.
The resort in Pine Mountain is eliminating some jobs and will close the gardens for more than a week in early January, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. CEO Edward Callaway said Tuesday the first six months of the year had been worse than expected.
“We spent $2.5 million on capital improvements this year. We thought we would grow our business by that much in the year. We’re not going to,” Callaway said. The gardens were seeing good growth in daily and weekend visits but that the group business wasn’t growing as needed, he said.
Much of the money was used to improve the 274-room Mountain Creek Inn next to Callaway Gardens. Both individual and group travelers were turned off by the hotel and its furnishings, which had gotten “old and tired,” Callaway said.
“I’m finding out it takes a while to win a group back,” Callaway said. “Groups book three months out, six months out, 12 months out. So we’re slowly growing our group business back.”