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 May 2021:
 | Avg Trip Spend | $1230.67 |  -9.5% | |
 | Avg Air Spend | $499.82 | -11.6% | |
 | Avg Hotel Spend | $487.48* | -7.8% | |
 | Avg Car Rental Spend | $243.37 | -8.1% |
There was also a 13% increase in processed trips taken from April 2021 to May 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 **
NEW: Total volume of trips processed by Cornerstone year-over-year
May 2021 Analysis
- We’ve hit a new high for traveler throughput since COVID began. Travel numbers are up by 13% from last month, and up 251% year-over-year. May 2020 was the second worst month of the pandemic, and the growth is definitely encouraging.
- Recently, we changed our reporting in how we 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 May 2021, hotel nights per trip averaged 3.41. This is slightly under the month of April, which averaged 4.09 nights per trip.
- Costs are down across the board despite traveler numbers being up. As we get into the full stretch of recovery, we are going to continue to see large fluctuations as the market continues to figure itself out. This should not be overly concerning, especially so long as traveler numbers continue to rise.
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.
