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 it is paramount that companies with data share our knowledge and the foresight it brings.
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.
Here are the numbers coming out of the Index regarding August 2022:
 | Avg Trip Spend | $1398.71 |  -3% | |
 | Avg Air Spend | $696.43 | -1% | |
 | Avg Hotel Spend | $488.67 | -2% | |
 | Avg Car Rental Spend | $248.68 | -9% |
There was also a 17% Increase in processed trips taken from July 2022 to August 2022.
** 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 **
Cornerstone is excited to announce that we are working on automating and expanding the Cornerstone Index. Above is the monthly breakdown for August 2022. Because of this, the index numbers may fluctuate within a small margin as we evaluate and filter our data inclusions. We are going to be making room for new categories (such as average nights per hotel stay and average days per car rental), and these may also affect how numbers are presented in future index digests. Stay tuned for more updates!
August 2022 Analysis
- With August’s recovery in the number of trips processed, we are officially above 2021 travel numbers! Adding in August’s records, we have recorded 114% of 2021 travel and growing. All travel for the rest of the year is growth. This is fantastically exciting news for the industry’s recovery.
- Costs were relatively stable from July to August. Air only fluctuated by 1.13%, and car rentals dipped by roughly $20 on average. Hotel costs decreased slightly, but the total hotel stays also jumped by roughly 16.6% in a month. This is a sure sign of increasing traveler confidence.
- Speaking of total hotel stays: that is going to be one of the new metrics that the Cornerstone Index is going to start adding to our monthly reviews, as well as night per hotel stay and days per car rental. We are also planning on making the new updates interactive so you can go back through the months and see the data on one page for comparison purposes.
Information on the Cornerstone Index:
Much like how the S&P 500 Index tells the health of the US Stock Market, 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.