I take the definition of locally compact saying that each space has a neighborhood base of compact sets. If $X$ is Hausdorff, then this is equivalent to each point having a compact neighborhood.
A compactification is usually required to be a compact Hausdorff space where the original space is densely embedded. Now Hausdorff spaces have the property that a locally compact subspace $S$ can be expressed as the intersection of a closed and an open subset, or equivalently, $S$ is open in $\overline S$. If $X$ is locally compact, then so is its homeomorphic image $i(X)$ in the compactification $\hat X$. As mentioned, $i(X)$ is open in its own closure, which is just $\hat X$, so $i(X)$ is open.