We here at Cornerstone Information Systems have been working on a method to aggregate, anonymize, and distribute information about the health of the Travel Industry – gathered from all of the data that flows through our network every month. We feel that, especially in light of the recent crises, it is paramount that companies with data share our knowledge and the foresight it brings so that we might not experience a repeat of the crash that accompanied the emergence of COVID
To facilitate that goal of data sharing, and yet also keep the data of our clients private, we have been working on the creation of a Cornerstone Index
Work on this project is still in progress, but we wanted to share with you our biggest numbers coming out of the Index regarding September 2021:
 | Avg Trip Spend | $1306.58 |  +3% | |
 | Avg Air Spend | $502.19 | +2% | |
 | Avg Hotel Spend | $569.44 | +6% | |
 | Avg Car Rental Spend | $234.95 |  +0.3% |
There was also a 6% increase in processed trips taken from August 2021 to September 2021.
** All currency is displayed in USD – the aggregates of our data have been converted into USD before being taken into account and calculating the Index numbers **
September 2021 Analysis
- After last month’s dip in all metrics, we were heartened to see modest gains again in September. Overall trips processed by Cornerstone increased by 6%. This negates last months’ decreases entirely as September saw a few more trips processed than July did.
- Prices stabilized as well, though air is still down a significant amount since July (roughly -19%). This could be a reflection of business travelers taking less long-distance or even fewer international trips due to the Delta Variant of COVID-19. Interestingly hotel stay length increased somewhat by ~0.2 days per stay. This has been a trend since April, suggesting that trips have perhaps been more significant and more consolidated.
- As the holidays draw closer, we will expect to see the seasonal dips in business travel typical of this time of year. It may be interesting to see how this plays out while concerns over the Delta Variant play out. That being said, September 2021 saw more than DOUBLE the number of trips processed by Cornerstone than September of 2020. We expect modest gains in October still, but the seasonal drop-off to happen in November and December.
Information on the Cornerstone Index:
Much like how the S&P 500 Index tells the health of the US Stock Market, so the Cornerstone Index is meant to reflect the health of the travel industry according to the data that we have available to us.
Please note that we are performing adjustments and cleansing to ensure an accurate index. This means that during our development of the index, some values may fluctuate month to month in their calculations. However, we do not believe this offsets major trends.
In the future, this will become an interactive app closely resembling our TravelOptix platform. At that time, we will be including functionality for different currencies. We are welcoming any feedback regarding this idea, and look forward to providing this information going forward.
