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TRAIN TRAVEL

Iryo: What to know about Spain’s newest high-speed low-cost trains

A new rail operator is launching routes between some of Spain’s main cities in the coming months at competitive rates. Here’s what we know so far about Iryo’s ticket prices, its services and its ambitious plans.  

Published: 21 September 2022 10:42 CEST
Updated: 24 September 2022 06:16 CEST
iryo trains spain
Iryo will offer services to the Spanish cities of Madrid, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Cordoba, Malaga, and Seville in 2022 and 2023. Photo: Iryo

The liberalisation of Spain’s rail service continues.

In May 2021, Ouigo became the first company to operate trains in Spain that weren’t part of state provider Renfe. 

Renfe responded by launching its own low-cost branch, Avlo. 

And now it’s the turn of Iryo, the newest player in Spain’s cheap train travel games. 

Iryo will be operated by ILSA, which is part of a consortium made up of Spanish airline Air Nostrum and Italy’s main train operator Trenitalia.

It will kick off its operations in Spain with 20 Frecciarossa trains, known as “red arrows”. 

They are capable of reaching speeds of 360km/h and can carry 419 passengers.

Iryo is ambitiously aiming to take hold of 30 percent of Spain’s rail market share, estimating it could transport 8 million passengers a year and create 2,600 jobs in the process.

Whether or not they achieve their goals, their arrival in Spain is good news for train travel, as further competition usually results in cheaper ticket prices for passengers.

According to a report by train ticket comparison site Trainline, the liberalisation of Spain’s rail services has already resulted in a 49 percent drop in prices and increased demand, with the Madrid-Barcelona route benefitting the most.  

What routes will Iryo operate in Spain and when will they start?

Iryo will launch its operations in Spain on November 25th 2022 with its Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona route. 

On December 16th 2022, it will kick-start its second route: the Madrid-Cuenca-Valencia line.

By March 2023, Iryo intends to increase its offering connecting Madrid with the southern Andalusian cities of Córdoba, Seville and Málaga. 

By June 2023, it plans to add two extra destinations to its train services: Albacete in east-central Spain and Alicante in the coastal Valencia region. 

iryo map route spain

The routes Iryo plans to launch in Spain in 2022 and 2023. Map: Iryo

When will Iryo train tickets be available and how much will they cost?

Iryo began selling tickets on its website www.iryo.eu on September 18th, so far only for its Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona route. 

Until October 2nd, they have discounts of up to 50 percent on this line, but it’s necessary to register on the website and use the iryo50 code to complete the purchase. 

Ticket prices from Madrid’s Atocha station to Barcelona’s Sants start at €18, although for the service launch on November 25th they’re going for €31.18. 

Passengers can choose from four categories with different offerings and prices:

  • “Inicial” (economy class which includes USB and standard two-pin charging spots, 5G internet and a free entertainment platform)
  • “Singular” (business class which includes onboard entertainment, internet and a food menu), 
  • “Singular Café by Only You” (designed as a coworking space, includes a food menu and gives access to the Iryo lounge at Madrid’s Atocha) 
  • “Infinita” (top-of-the-range seating, access to Iryo lounge at Atocha, free drinks and wine and a variety of menus to choose from)

READ ALSO: How to get free train tickets in Spain

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TOURISM

Ecotax and cruise bans: Why Spain’s mass tourism measures haven’t worked

Regions and cities around Spain have tried several ways to slow down the negative effects of mass tourism on local communities, largely without any luck and not addressing the major problem underpinning it.

Published: 3 May 2024 09:27 CEST
Ecotax and cruise bans: Why Spain's mass tourism measures haven't worked

The Spanish tourism sector continues to grow, but so does opposition to it.

Increasingly in Spain in recent years, anti-tourist sentiment (sometimes veering into anti-digital nomad sentiment) is on the rise, and much of it is born from frustrations about mass tourism and gentrification and their impact on Spaniards.

READ ALSO: Why does hatred of tourists in Spain appear to be on the rise?

In 2000, 46.4 million tourists visited Spain. In those days, travellers (often from Northern Europe) flocked to the coasts to stay in the hotel blocks right on the beach. The classic Spanish holiday, if you will.

But things are changing. By 2023, that figure had nearly doubled to 85.3 million.

Yet during those 23 years hotel accommodation grew by just 7 percent. This statistic, cited by Juan Molas, President of Spain’s Tourist Board and cited in Spanish daily El País, reveals a lot about the Spanish tourism sector and why efforts to try and combat mass tourism (or its negative effects, at least) have failed so far.

Molas’ statistic begs an obvious question: where do the rest of those tourists now stay, if not in traditional hotels?

Increasingly, in short-term accommodation such as tourist rentals and, in recent years, Airbnbs.

READ MORE: ‘Get the f*ck out of here’ – Málaga plastered with anti-tourism stickers

There have been regular protests against mass tourism around Spain in recent months, notably in places like the Canary Islands and Málaga.

Anti-tourist graffiti has appeared in places such as Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, the Canary and Balearic Islands, places that face the brunt of mass tourism in Spain. Locals complain that the proliferation of tourist rental accommodation depletes the affordable housing stock, inflates the local property market, and prices them out of their own neighbourhoods.

Often, these sorts of tourist rental accommodations are unlicensed and illegal. In Madrid, for example, there are tens of thousands of tourist apartments in Madrid available through platforms such as Airbnb and Booking, and yet recent findings show that barely five percent have a municipal tourist licence in order to operate legally. 

“Neither the central administration, nor the regions, nor the town councils have done their homework on the illegal [accommodation] offer, which is the most important scourge of tourism in Spain,” Molas says.

Though the problem seems obvious to many, including experts like Molas, some regions of Spain have focused on other ways to try and limit mass tourism… and they haven’t really worked so far.

READ ALSO:

Tourist tax

Tourist taxes made big news in recent weeks when Venice began charging tourists on day trips to visit the tourist hotspot.

In Spain, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are the only two regions that have implemented tourist taxes so far, although not with the express aim of reducing the number of visitors.

Rather, Catalonia taxes overnight stays while the Balearic Islands taxes possible environmental damage. Visitor arrivals have continued to rise despite the taxes.

In the thirteen years since the tax was introduced in Barcelona, tourist numbers have risen from 14.5 million to 18 million. Importantly, a moratorium on hotel construction has been in place in the Catalan capital since 2017, which has led to an exponential growth in tourist rental accommodation in the city.

In the case of the Balearic Islands, the annual number of tourist arrivals has increased from 13 to 14 million in the six years in which the so-called ‘ecotax’ has been in force on the islands.

Limiting cruise ships

Coastal and island resorts in Spain have also tried to combat mass tourism by limiting the number of cruise ships allowed to dock there.

In 2022, Palma de Mallorca became the first destination in Spain and the second in Europe, after Dubrovnik in Croatia, to make an agreement with major cruise ship companies to establish a limit of three cruise ships per day, and specified that only one of them could bring more than 5,000 passengers ashore.

In places like Mallorca but also in Barcelona, enormous cruise ships previously docked and released thousands of tourists into the city at once.

But once again, like with the tourist taxes introduced, a limit on cruise ship numbers, although welcome, misses the point — cruise ship customers sleep on the ship, not in the real problem underpinning Spain’s mass tourism model: accommodation.

Tourist accommodation

Varying legislation restricting Airbnb-style rentals has already been introduced in recent years in cities such as Valencia, Palma, Seville, Tarifa, Madrid, Barcelona, and San Sebastián, with varying degrees of success. 

The number of short-term rental accommodation has exploded in Spain. They are particularly popular with remote workers and among digital nomads with the foreign spending power to price out locals. Recent data shows that in the old town of Seville, over half of residential homes are used for tourism. In the area of ​​Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, 28.3 percent are tourist apartments, while the figure stands at 18.3  percent in the centre of Valencia.  

READ MORE: How Spain’s Asturias region plans to limit short-term holiday lets

Tourist taxes and limits on cruise ship numbers are welcome. But they appear to be doing little to tackle the true underlying problem with Spain’s mass tourism model.

For now, measures are being rolled out largely on a regional level, but it may require the national government to step in and legislate, as it did when it scrapped the Golden Visa earlier this year, although again the effectiveness of this measure has also been questioned. 

READ MORE: Is Spain’s decision to axe golden visa about housing or politics?

Increasing the social housing stock more generally would also go some way to alleviate the pressure on Spaniards struggling to pay rent or even find a home.

Tourism is a double edged sword in Spain. The tourism sector has long made up a significant proportion of Spanish GDP and provided employment for locals, but the model it currently has is outdated, it inflates property markets, angers Spaniards, and creates tension between tourists and locals.

In 2023, international visitors spent €108 billion in Spain, 17 percent more than in 2019. Spanish travel industry association Exceltur forecasts that in 2024 it will surpass €200 billion for the first time.

READ ALSO: ‘The island can’t take it anymore’ – Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism

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