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 regarding the March 2023 travel index:
 | Avg Trip Spend | $1552.40 |  +5% | |
 | Avg Air Spend | $779.96 | +8% | |
 | Avg Hotel Spend | $570.13 |  +1% | |
 | Avg Car Rental Spend | $202.31 | +4% |
There was also an 2% Decrease in processed trips taken from February 2023 to March 2023.
** 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 **
March 2023 Analysis
- Processed trips slowed in their decline between February and March as Q1 drew to an end. In terms of actual volume, trips were relatively stable between these months and overall lengths of trips processed was significantly longer. We may be seeing a consolidation where people are taking fewer corporate trips, but making those trips longer to accommodate more business.
- Hotel stays (+13%), hotel nights per trip (+4%), and car rentals (+12%), all jumped significantly from February to March. The 12% increase in car rentals specifically may point to more travel being conducted closer to home for this month, which would explain the increase in hotel stays but decrease in flights taken.
- Prices increased across the board by healthy amounts, and are forecasted to continue to do so into the summer months, so this is highly encouraging. This means a stable market as well as steady commission growth for travel sellers.
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 travel index, some values may fluctuate month to month in their calculations. However, we do not believe this offsets major travel trends.