Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, we're going to try and pull back the curtain
a bit on hospitality tech.
It's often a really closed off world. Lots of jargon.
Definitely is.
But before we dive in, just a quick word about the folks who helped make this
possible.
We're supported today by Safe Server.
Great partner.
Yeah, they support digital transformation. And importantly, for today's topic, they
actually provide hosting for software just like the platform we're about to discuss.
So if you're looking at your digital setup, check them out at www.safeserver.de.
Good resource.
OK, so let's get into this. If you're listening, you're the learner.
You probably know that specialized software, the kind you need for running a hotel
or maybe a clinic or even a factory, it's often proprietary, right?
Expensive.
It locks you right in.
Exactly. Locks you into a vendor.
So what happens when the hospitality industry, which is so reliant on, you know,
real time inventory, customer data?
What happens when it bumps up against a powerful free open source alternative?
Well, that's kind of the big shift we're looking at today, isn't it?
Running a hotel or even a small chain, it's incredibly complex.
You've got inventory pricing that changes constantly, loyalty programs,
distributing rooms across, I don't know, dozens of websites.
Yeah, it's a lot.
Historically, the proprietary hotel management systems, they held all the power and
charged, well, pretty substantial licensing fees every year.
Right. So our mission today is really to explore this thing called QLaps.
It's a completely free and open source solution for hotel operations, reservations,
the whole package.
And we're not just listing features. We want to really dissect the strategic shift
this represents.
We need to get what QLaps core parts are the PMS, booking engine, channel manager.
And this is key, why moving this stuff to open source really changes the game for
hotel owners.
Absolutely. It's a fundamental change of the business model.
So let's define the playground here.
Sources describe QLaps as like the ultimate starter kit, a one-stop solution for
hotel businesses.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
It's the full digital toolkit you need to get a hotel business online, show off the
property and manage every single booking yourself.
Exactly. And I think to really get its value, you have to look at the three sort of
foundational pillars it gives you, all integrated right from the start.
OK, break those down for us.
So pillar number one, the property management system, the PMS, this is really the
operational brain of the hotel.
Its main job, reduce manual work, it organizes all the internal stuff, check ins,
check outs, who gets which room, tracking reservations.
For the hotelier, this is all about efficiency, cutting down on errors in the day
to day.
And that function alone, I mean, in the old proprietary world, that could cost a
medium size hotel, what, five, $10,000 a year just in licensing.
Easily, sometimes more.
So by just getting rid of that cost, QLaps completely changes the ownership cost
calculation.
It basically becomes hosting and maybe optional support.
That's a huge shift strategically.
It really is.
Then the second pillar focuses on bringing in the money, the booking engine.
Right, the customer facing part.
Exactly, this is the smooth online portal that sits right on the hotel's own
website.
Its goal is simple, make booking as easy as possible for the guest.
Why is that so important?
Because it maximizes direct bookings.
And direct bookings are almost always way more profitable for the hotel than bookings
coming through third party sites, you know, the OTAs.
Gotcha, less commission paid out.
And the third pillar.
The third is the foundation for all that, the Attractive Hotel website.
Pull-ups isn't just like background software.
It helps you build the actual website, the face of your brand.
Ah, so it includes website building tools too?
Yes, integrating that booking engine seamlessly.
And what's really impressive is the scope.
We're not just talking about someone with a tiny B&B, although it works for that
too.
This system is built to handle everything from small independent places up to
potentially
big hotel chains, apartments, vacation rentals.
So it scales.
It's designed to grow with the business, absolutely.
OK, let's step a bit deeper into that operational brain you mentioned, the PMS.
Right, the PMS.
When you look inside, you see how QLaps really tackles those tough efficiency
problems.
It's all about streamlining processes so the staff can focus more on the guests and
less
on just entering data manually.
Makes sense.
Now, here's where things get really strategic, I think, for how hotels actually
operate today.
Your own website, that's great, but it's only one piece, right?
Absolutely, just one channel.
You have to be visible everywhere else, Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, all those big
players.
And that is the critical challenge.
Managing your room inventory, your rates across maybe dozens of these online travel
agencies,
these OTAs, in real time, it's notoriously difficult.
Yeah, I can imagine.
If you mess up, you either sell rooms you don't actually have that's overbooking, a
disaster, or you show you're full when you actually have empty rooms and you just
lose
money.
Okay, so that brings us to the channel manager.
This sounds like a really big deal in QLaps.
It is.
It's huge.
It's built to manage and sync the hotel's rates and inventory automatically across
all
those different OTAs.
But let me push back a bit here.
If this whole thing is free and open source, how reliable can that channel manager
be?
I mean, Expedia, Booking.com, they change their systems, their APIs constantly.
How does a community project keep up?
That needs real time, secure integration.
That's a really fair question.
And the answer ties into, well, a couple of things.
The strength of the open source community, which we'll touch on more, but also the
role
of the main developer behind it, Webcool.
Okay.
Unlike maybe a small proprietary company that might struggle to keep pace, open
source can
potentially tap into developers worldwide.
But you're right.
Core Stability often relies on the main driving entity ensuring those connections
are maintained.
So Webcool plays a key role there.
They do.
But the fundamental so what of the channel manager is preventing those really
costly
mistakes.
That real time sync cuts down on overbooking nightmares and makes sure you're
selling rooms
everywhere you possibly can.
It's really about de-risking operations.
And the system goes beyond just rooms, right?
QLAP seems to offer ways to expand the business model too.
Yeah, definitely.
They have integrated tools for managing, say, an associated restaurant.
So restaurant management features, even POS point of sale systems, that helps turn
the
whole property into one unified business.
Okay, that's pretty comprehensive.
And then there's something really ambitious, the marketplace solution.
What's that?
This is, well, it's a big shift.
It lets a hotel owner turn their own website into a marketplace for multiple
properties.
Wait, like their own mini Expedia?
Sort of.
They can invite other local hotel owners, maybe smaller B&Bs, to list their
properties
on the main QLOP site.
And the site owner then earns a commission on those bookings.
Wow.
Okay.
That moves you from just running your hotel to running a booking platform.
Exactly.
It's a different business model entirely.
And they even support building a dedicated mobile booking app for your hotel, which
helps
with customer loyalty and direct bookings.
So all this power, the POS, the marketplace idea, the crucial channel manager, it
all
hinges on the core system being flexible.
Right.
Absolutely.
It goes back to the beauty of its foundation being open source.
Right.
Because it's open source, the features aren't set in stone.
You can expand it using add-ons.
Hoteliers can tweak it for their specific needs, maybe even pay someone to build
custom
features.
Precisely.
And just look at the kinds of add-ons available.
They clearly target both what modern guests expect and those operational headaches
hotels
face.
Like what?
Give us some examples.
On the guest side, you see things like a hotel virtual tour add-on lets people
really see
the place online.
There's a reward system for building loyalty with points, practical stuff too, like
online
check-in to make arrival faster.
Saves time at the front desk.
Yeah.
And then operationally, there's a housekeeping module.
Helps manage daily cleaning tasks, maintenance schedules, much better than clipboards,
right?
Definitely.
And of course, essential things like secure payments, they have add-ons for PayPal,
checkout,
and likely others, making transactions safe and easy.
And what about the less glamorous stuff, like compliance?
Good point.
They address that too.
There are specific add-ons for GDPR compliance, which is crucial if you have
European guests
protecting customer data, and also tools for SEO optimization.
Ah, so helping the hotel's own website rank higher in search results.
Exactly.
Boosting that direct traffic, hopefully pulling some business away from the OTAs.
Okay.
So a listener who's maybe a bit technical or thinking about actually setting this
up,
what's under the hood, what does it run on?
Let's try and keep it simple, though.
Sure.
The main code is mostly PHP.
That's a really common web language, makes up over 80 percent of it, so lots of
developers
know it.
Okay, familiar tech.
Yeah.
It needs a pretty standard modern web server setup, specifically PHP versions 8.1
up to
8.4, and a MySQL database version 5.7 up to 8.4.
And it's on common web servers, Apache, Minjinx, even Microsoft, Isis.
So standard stuff for most web hosting providers.
Generally, yes.
And getting it installed is flexible, too.
There's the usual step-by-step guide, or for people using newer tech like
containers, there's
a Docker image available.
You just pull WebGulps, Docker, and it simplifies deployment quite a bit.
Docker makes things easier, for sure.
Okay, so that operational freedom, the ability to change the code, choose your own
hosting,
that's all guaranteed by the license, right?
You mentioned open source.
Exactly.
The operating system uses the OSL 3.0 license, open software license.
Some extra modules use AFL 3.0.
What does OSL 3.0 actually mean for a hotel owner, in plain English?
It's really important.
OSL 3.0 is what's called a copy left license.
It means the software is free to use, modify, share.
But critically, if you make significant improvements or changes to the core code
and distribute
them, you generally have to share those changes back with the community under the
same license.
So it keeps improvements open, prevents someone from taking it private again.
That's the idea.
It fosters ongoing collaboration and ensures the core stays free and open.
It legally protects that community development model.
And let's clarify who's behind this.
You mentioned Webcool.
It's a community project, but they seem to be the main drivers.
Yeah.
Webcool initiated it and are the primary developers and maintainers.
This is actually a pretty common and effective model in open source.
You get the benefits of open source, the cost savings, the flexibility, the
community input.
But you also have a dedicated company ensuring stability, providing direction, and
offering
professional services around it.
Best of both worlds, really.
OK.
That makes sense.
And the community aspect seems strong.
Very.
If you look at GitHub, where the code lives, the numbers are impressive.
Over 10,200 stars, 660 forks.
That's not just a small side project.
That indicates significant interest and real-world use from developers who are
invested in it.
That kind of scale needs good security practices, though.
Going back to my earlier point about reliability, especially with payments and
guest data involved.
Absolutely critical.
And the sources show they have a clear process for this.
If anyone finds a security issue, a vulnerability, they're instructed not to post
it publicly.
Right.
That would be bad.
Very.
Instead, they report it privately via a specific email address, support, at clopes.com.
This gives the developer his time to fix it before malicious actors can exploit it.
Stand responsible disclosure policy.
Okay, good.
And that addresses that common fear, right?
If it's open source, am I just left on my own if something breaks?
Exactly.
And that's just not the reality here.
Because Webcool's involved, they offer comprehensive support options.
You can get cloud hosting directly from them if you want, audit and optimization
services
to fine tune performance, tailored training, even 247 support plans.
So you can get enterprise level support if you need it.
You can.
You just don't have to pay mandatory enterprise license fees just to use the core
software.
You pay for the services you actually need.
Okay, let's wrap this up.
Can you summarize the core takeaway for our listeners?
Sure.
I think the main thing is that Qlabs is way more than just free software.
It's a complete integrated ecosystem for hotels.
It gives you the PMS, the booking engine, the channel manager, and the website
platform
all working together.
All the key pieces.
Right.
The strategic value, the real game changer, is that it lets businesses big or small
slash
those proprietary software costs actually own their own data, streamline how they
run things,
and customize their system in ways that are often impossible or incredibly
expensive in
the traditional hotel tech world.
Right.
Owning your data, owning your platform.
That feels key.
Okay, so here's the provocative final thought we want to leave you with today.
If free, community-driven software built mainly on common tech like PHP and
protected by these
open licenses, if that can handle the incredibly complex, high-stakes job of
running hotel
reservations and operations, potentially even for large chains, well what other
really specialized,
really expensive business offer sectors are just waiting to be disrupted by similar
open
source solutions?
Good question.
It suggests the open source model isn't just about saving a few bucks.
It might be about fundamentally taking back control of your business infrastructure.
A powerful thought.
Okay, that's our deep dive for today.
We do want to thank our sponsor again, SafeSurfer.
They support digital transformation and, as we mentioned, provide hosting for
software
like QLabs.
You can find out more about how they can help your digital journey at www.safesurfer.de.
Check them out.
Until next time, keep digging, keep learning.