ONLINE retail giant Amazon has just opened yet another logistics centre in Spain – this time outside of its usual target areas in and around the country's biggest cities.
Since Amazon's launch in Spain in 2011and the creation of Amazon.es, packing and storing hubs, among other operations, have nearly all been set up in or close to Madrid and Barcelona.
But this time, the massive plant opened in the last few days is in Onda, a town of around 25,000 inhabitants in the east-coast province of Castellón.
Often taking a back seat to the other two, much more populous and cosmopolitan provinces in the Comunidad Valenciana region - Valencia and Alicante - Castellón is far quieter, more rural and less densely inhabited.
Although it borders to the north on the Catalunya province of province of Tarragona – home to holiday hotspots such as Reus and Salou – and its southern coastline is the well-known Costa Azahar, Castellón province has seen very little incursion by foreign tourists and expats, and its best-known beach towns, one of which is the music festival capital of Benicàssim, are rarely busy even in high summer.
Onda is close to the provincial capital city of Castellón de la Plana (170,300 inhabitants) and Vila-real, or Villarreal (51,000 residents), the two largest municipalities in the province in terms of headcount which, combined, make up nearly half the total number living in Castellón's 135 towns and villages.
The new Amazon warehouse, the size of eight football pitches, is a welcome feature for Onda and surrounding areas, since it will provide jobs with a multi-national firm in an otherwise very rural area which does not often get a bite of the corporate apple.
About four million outsized packages can be stored there at any one time, and the centre will instantly create in region of 500 permanent jobs.
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