Less than a year after selling 7,000 of its 13,000 acres, Callaway Gardens is still working to lure more visitors to the nature-oriented attraction amid a U.S. economy that is slowly rebounding.

But Edward Callaway, the chairman and chief executive officer of the resort in Pine Mountain, Ga., conceded Tuesday the first six months of this year have been worse than expected. That has prompted belt-tightening that includes cutting some jobs and deciding to shutter the gardens for more than a week in early January.

“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. “We’re getting good growth in social (daily and weekend visitors), but not groups. So I have trimmed our expenditures to fit our budget.”

Much of that money was spent to upgrade the 274-room Mountain Creek Inn off U.S. Highway 27 and adjacent to Callaway Gardens. The CEO said the hotel and its furnishings had grown “old and tired,” thus turning off both individual and group travelers.