We here are 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 March 2021:
 | Avg Trip Spend | $1235.55 |  8% | |
 | Avg Air Spend | $465.07 | 12% | |
 | Avg Hotel Spend | $529.00* | 5.4% | |
 | Avg Car Rental Spend | $241.48 | 5% |
There was also a 33% increase in processed trips taken from February 2021 to March 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 **
- The total trips logged in March is officially at the highest level since the pandemic began. This is fantastic news! While March is still down 34% year-over-year (and March is the first anniversary of the pandemic, so March 2020 numbers were the first to show real decline), travel was still significantly up last month.
- A change in our reporting will showcase a different number from now on for hotel spend. Hotel spend used to be averaged per night, but will now be reported as average spend per trip. This will reflect more accurate data as it also accounts for how long trips are becoming. For March 2021, hotel nights per trip averaged 4.02.
- The implementation of vaccines is likely the biggest reason for the massive boost in overall numbers of trips taken in March 2021. Now that the vaccines are becoming a little more widespread, we hope to see this percentage increase trending only upward.
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.
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.
