Open-Source Community is changing the way how we conduct our business.
If we take a look at the e-commerce industry, we can clearly observe that the industry is full of options in terms of technology. Anyone can launch an online store very easily within minutes.
All thanks to the open-source community. The community is very strong and active in the e-commerce industry. There are many open-source and free platforms like Prestashop and Magento that are serving the industry.
But in the hospitality industry, there is rarely anyone to play this role.
The Hospitality Industry is one of the fastest growing industry in the world and also one of the fastest growing too. Its contribution to the world economy is huge.
The direct, indirect and induced impact contribution to the world’s GDP accounted is US$8.3 trillion, 10.4% of global GDP, and 313 million jobs.
So the time has come for the open-source community to stand for this industry.
It is evident from the acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft and Redhat by IBM that open-source is future. And any industry will want to cash the power of such strong communities.
Some reasons for the hospitality industry to yearn for the open source community are:
The source code of an open source software is freely available to all and anyone can inspect the code for the bug.
So the bug finding and fixing processes are very fast and robust in the open source industry.
In a proprietary software, no one knows what is going in the code of the software except those who are working on it.
So the software is under the vigilance of a few people only but thousands of tech-savvy watch an opensource software all around the globe.
Cost-effectiveness is one of the most prominent reasons behind the affection of businesses towards open source community.
Open-source software packages are available for the community use and they do not cover the costs that proprietary solutions have.
They only involve customization charges, support fee or any training fee. And only this reason is sufficient to justify why the hospitality industry needs open source software.
The industry consists of hotels that range from big chains to small individual hotels. Big hotel chains can afford expensive systems but small hotels can’t.
So they desperately need the open source community to stand behind them.
Open source software may or may not have dedicated support teams like a proprietary software but they do have one thing that is very precious, the community.
Open source software is backed by strong and passionate communities through forums, blogs and sometimes dedicated support too. You will not be left alone if there is an issue in the system or you need any assistance.
The community is consist of very skilled developers or teams of developers and users that are always ready to make a contribution.
Industry keeps changing in and so does the expectation from the software. Many times the load on the system increases and many times there is a need for a new functionality. So it is very necessary for the system to be both scalable and extendible.
As a whole community works on an open source project then system remains updated and robust. The need of the hour is always answered.
In the community, there are some raise issue and ask for a feature. And in the community itself, there are some who resolve these issues and add new features to the software. This cycle of open source projects always keeps them updated according to the industry.
Every hotel is different and they have their own requirements from the system which suites only to them and cannot be implied to everyone. In such cases, customizations come into play.
Open Source software is best for customization as their source code is open. So you are not bound to a particular vendor. You can choose any vendor or team to customize the solution for you. You can also work yourself on it.
This is the freedom an open source software offers you.
The open source community has served many industries. And if we take the example of the e-commerce industry then the businesses have so many options like Prestashop and Magento. Anyone can launch his e-commerce website in a matter of few minutes and that too free.
Hotel Industry also craves for such a platform and that is why we have launched QloApps. QloApps launches a hotel booking website within a few minutes and it is also free of cost. So we invite the open source community to come and contribute on Qloapps.
We aspire to serve the hotel industry with our product QloApps and that process we have taken a step forward by launching the QloApps Forum. So please raise any of your issue on our Forum.
For any kind of technical assistance, just raise a ticket.
