How AirCnC started: the real story behind our South Peninsula property management company

I didn't set out to start a property management company. Honestly, for a long time it was just an idea sitting in the back of my mind: something my husband Ryan kept nudging me towards, and something I kept finding reasons to put off. The timing was never right. Life was busy

Hotel School, then the deep end...

I studied at The International Hotel School between 2008 and 2010, and it shaped everything that came after: not just the technical side of hospitality, but the way I think about guests, about service, about what it actually means to make someone feel at home in a space that isn't theirs.

From there I went straight into the industry. I worked front of house at Constantia Uitsig, one of the most beautiful wine estates in the Cape, and then at Pigalle Restaurant, which was a different kind of pressure entirely: a high-volume, high-expectation restaurant environment where you learned very quickly how to read a room and solve problems before guests noticed there was one.

Later I moved into events at the Two Oceans Aquarium, which added a whole other layer: larger-scale logistics, client management, and the particular challenge of making something feel personal and special at scale.

I tell you all of this because it matters. When I talk about hospitality-led hosting, I'm not using a phrase I read somewhere. I'm describing the way I was trained to think about people who walk through a door.

The detour that changed everything...

After years in hospitality, I left to try something completely different. I started an online baby business: a completely new challenge that excited me. It went well, until a much bigger competitor entered the market and undercut everything we had built. The business didn't survive it.

We needed income. We had a property. And I knew, from years in the industry, how to make guests feel looked after.

Listing our home in Fish Hoek on Airbnb wasn't a grand strategic decision. It was a practical one, the only lever I had at the time that made sense. We moved in with my parents, handed the keys over to strangers, and held our breath.

It worked better than we expected. The reviews came in, the bookings kept coming, and I realised I was actually good at this: not just at managing a property, but at the guest experience side of it. The Hotel School training had never really gone anywhere. It had just been waiting for the right outlet.

The moment I stopped waiting...

By the time I was pregnant with my son in 2021, I had two Airbnb properties running off our primary property and a quiet certainty emerged that there was something bigger here. Ryan had been saying it for years. I'd been agreeing in theory and finding reasons to delay in practice.

Then I thought about going back to a job I didn't love when my son was three months old. I'd done it with my daughter and I knew how it felt. I didn't want to do it again. So I stopped waiting for the right time. I focused on my family, I focused on my two properties, and I let the results speak for themselves.

A friend recommended me to her uncle, who needed someone to help manage a small apartment. I took it on. Then one thing led to another and here we are.

October 2022 — AirCnC becomes official

In October 2022, AirCnC Property Management was formally established. What started with one friend's recommendation and a small apartment has grown into a portfolio of 16 properties across the South Peninsula: we have properties in Fish Hoek, Glencairn, Simon's Town and Kommetjie.

We hold Superhost status on Airbnb (almost 10 years). We have a 4.9 star rating across more than 350 reviews. And every single one of those reviews represents a guest who felt genuinely looked after (not just checked in and handed a key code)!

That's what the Hotel School training, the restaurant floor, the aquarium events, and years of managing my own properties all add up to. Hospitality-led hosting. It's not a tagline. It's the only way I know how to do this.

What this means if you're a property owner...

If you're a property owner on the South Peninsula thinking about short-term rental - whether you're relocating, investing, or simply want your property to earn more - what you're really looking for is someone you can trust completely.

Someone who has stayed in their own Airbnb, who has managed through the difficult guests and the last-minute maintenance calls and the 12am linen crises, and who genuinely understands what's at stake when you hand over the keys to your asset.

That's what AirCnC is built on. Not a franchise, not a call centre, not a property management formula imported from somewhere else. A company that started on the South Peninsula, run by someone who has lived here for 26 years and has no interest in operating anywhere else.

If you'd like to find out whether your property is a good fit, get in touch. I'd love to have that conversation.

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AirCnC Property Management offers full-service short-term rental management across the Cape South Peninsula. Contact us or find us on Airbnb to see our properties and reviews.