Boutique hotel, guest house – what are we?

We want you to know what our accommodation is about before you arrive.  We explain it below and show you some pictures. We want you to know why the "boutique hotel" and why the "guest house". Different names mean different things to different nationalities.

A "boutique hotel" can be as small as two or as big as 200 rooms. We have six rooms.

Trip Advisor ranks us as a hotel as we have a 24/7 front desk and our bed-rooms are en-suite.

In South Africa a guest house is considered ver much up market compared to a B&B. We have stuck with the South African definition simply because we are ranked as a five star guest house by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (as we normally only offer breakfasts. We are so close to all the great restaurants of Franschhoek that serving three meals a day does not make sense.).

We do offer all the other services of a good hotel such as newspapers in the morning, 24 hour concierge service, guest laundry, Wi-Fi throughout all our property, mini bar and pre-programmed mobile telephones and satellite TV in all rooms (all free by the way), a library, reception rooms and four swimming pools.

On the other hand we try to create the personal service and friendliness of a good, small guest house in the South African sense of the word. Most of our rooms are in separate buildings and we try to combine maximum privacy and peace for our guests but with great personal service.

The gardens and public spaces at Akademie Street Boutique Hotel and Guest House: