SOFTWARE FOR THE SMALLER HOSTEL
Every hostel needs a smooth and accurate method of recording reservations and allocating beds.
How do you do these in YOUR hostel?
By pencil-and-paper?
You might have a ledger which you have ruled into compartments showing beds on each day. If your hostel is very small, this time-honoured method can work well. But if your hostel increases in size, it quickly gets unwieldy. You will then start looking for a computer solution.
By Spreadsheet?
You might have written a spreadsheet that allocates beds. That can work well, provided you have another piece of software, or maybe pencil-and-paper, to record reservations, but copying information between them can go wrong.
What else is on the market?
As you look around the market for a system to do these tasks efficiently, what do you find?
* Software linked to a booking engine.
You find some software packages that link to a specific booking engine such as Hostelworld, Hostelbookers or Gomio. These may do what you want up to a limit, but they don't make it easy to do additional things (such as linking to other booking engines). Some of them store all your data on the website of that booking engine, which raises issues of privacy and also unavailability when the internet is down. And some hostels find aspects of their software so obscure that they maintain a paper record system in parallel!!
* Elaborate software systems.
You find several software packages that do all the things you want. But they do a lot more. Many allow you to process income for not only beds but also bar, meals, wages etc, and produce a financial report; many will prepare invoices. You may not need these features, but they are there, and you have to pay for them. Moreover, the complexity of the system makes it difficult to learn -- very important when you need to get new staff up to speed. Several systems claim that they link automatically with booking engines; this looks great, but look at the price! These packages may be excellent for a hostel with hundreds of beds, but they are overkill for your more modest needs. So you sigh, and continue with your previous method.
What would you really like?
Would you like to have an efficient system that will improve on your present method, which doesn't cost a lot, and which can be extended the way YOU want?
* OPEN DOOR.
Open Door provides the facilities that all small and medium hostels need. The base package provides just this, to reduce confusion and keep the price low. If you need to write invoices or link to booking sites, Open Door can output its information in a format that makes it most convenient to do these tasks. If you have additional needs, we can tailor the package to your needs for a modest additional cost.
Would you like to know more? Then please click one the the options below!
Is Open Door what you are looking for?
If you think it could be, please send an email to Peter Wright at the following address:
opendoor (AT) uktrail.com .
(Replace AT by @)