Business travel by train

Having become the first technology operator to integrate Iryo's offering, Consultia Business Travel allows organisations to assess transport modes, prices, timetables and environmental impact in real time within the same purchasing flow, for their corporate travel.

The map of corporate mobility in Spain is undergoing a structural reconfiguration. The arrival of new high-speed operators and the increase in frequencies on the main peninsular corridors have established rail as the preferred option for business travel. However, the rise in competition has introduced a commercial fragmentation that shapes the day-to-day operations of procurement, finance and human resources departments.

The coexistence of multiple rail companies, each with its own pricing policies, change conditions and distribution channels, has increased the complexity of decision-making. When ticket searching and purchasing is carried out in a dispersed way across independent portals, organisations face a phenomenon of booking leakage. This practice not only pushes up the final cost of the trip by making like-for-like comparison harder, but also dilutes budget control and complicates the consolidation of administrative data.

In response to this dispersion, corporate policies are evolving towards centralised booking models. The need to access the entire commercial offering from a single environment answers a twofold strategic requirement: optimising direct spending and strictly meeting sustainability (ESG) objectives. On medium-distance journeys, the time factor is no longer measured solely by the length of the journey, but by the ability to process the booking immediately and assess the carbon footprint associated with the trip.

This shift is also reflected in companies' mobility habits internationally. According to a report by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), rail is gaining ground in business travel: 60% of the professionals surveyed in Europe say they used the train as a means of transport during their business trips in 2025.

Against this backdrop of transformation in the sector, Consultia Business Travel, the firm specialising in business travel management, has completed the technical and uniform integration of the various high-speed rail brands — such as Renfe (AVE and Avlo), Iryo, OUIGO, Deutsche Bahn, Trenitalia, National Rail and other European operators — into its management platform, Destinux®.

"The arrival of new players in high-speed rail has brought greater competitiveness to the market, but it has also added an unprecedented degree of complexity to the management of corporate bookings. When the offering multiplies, requiring companies or travellers themselves to consult different platforms creates operational inefficiencies and a loss of control over spending. The solution is not to restrict options, but to integrate the entire offering into a single channel. Enriching the availability of all mobility solutions within a single solution allows organisations to make objective decisions, aligned with their budgets and their environmental commitments at the very moment the booking is made," says Ignacio González, general manager at Consultia Business Travel.

This unified integration within the corporate booking engine allows companies to automate the application of their internal policies. With the full catalogue of timetables, classes and fares available in a single interface, travel managers and employees themselves can compare the available alternatives in real time without leaving the company's control environment. Automating the process reduces administrative processing times and ensures the systematic application of the negotiated corporate conditions.

The unification of ticket purchasing reflects a change in the management of corporate resources. Business mobility is leaving operational fragmentation behind to adopt integrated systems where budget efficiency and the productivity of employees in transit are managed from a single point of control.