Guides at the terminal before the ship docks

Marta runs the guide teams of a big tour company in Barcelona. Cruise passengers are a third of her business. Ships come in early, late, or not at all, and the port’s list changes overnight. Marta keeps forty guides on call just in case. Some mornings, half of them wait at the terminal for nothing. Other mornings, a ship arrives early and nobody is there. With xMap Flows, Marta built Harbor. Every half hour from four in the morning, over the sea off Barcelona, Harbor listens for the passenger ships, keeps the ones heading for Barcelona, skips the ones already counted, works out the guides from each ship’s size, and calls the guides in on WhatsApp. At five this morning, Harbor hears a three hundred metre ship coming in an hour early, off Sitges. Twelve guides are told before six and meet it at the terminal. On quiet days, the rest stay home. Marta stopped guessing which ships would come. Now she watches them arrive.

The story in words