Some passengers decided to take it easy on board

A German liner docked in Cardiff Bay for the first time on Tuesday during a 15-day British Isles cruise.

The 500 passengers then spent a day in Cardiff and south Wales before the liner sailed on to Ireland.

Tourism chiefs hope Cardiff can now break into the lucrative international cruise market and become a regular stop-off for liners.

The MS Deutschland, called at Cardiff as part of a 15-day British Isles cruise taking in the Isles of Scilly, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, the Orkney Islands and Dundee, before heading back to the German port of Kiel, via Copenhagen.

Passengers have paid more than �3,000 each for the luxury cruise and many bought golf and sightseeing packages for their day in Wales.

Passengers had the chance to sample the sights of Cardiff

Last year, 894,000 overseas tourists visited Wales, spending �269m in the Welsh economy - far less than the �1.76bn spent by the 11.6 million visitors from within the UK.

It is hoped that establishing Cardiff as a stop-off for international cruises will increase the amount of money spent in Wales by foreign tourists.

'Spin-off benefits'

Tourism organisations in Cardiff claim that the planned arrival of more cruise ships could see the Welsh capital join cities like Barcelona, whose docklands have been remodelled as a destination for liners.

Richard Jones, general manager of the Cardiff Initiative, which promotes the city internationally, said: "Cardiff is a brand-new name on the international cruise scene and this is potentially a valuable means of boosting visitor numbers and revenue, with spin-off benefits for the whole of Wales.

"This is going to be big for us."

Mr Jones added that Cardiff could follow Alaska as a new destination for tourism based around cruises.

"Ten years ago no cruise ships called there (Alaska). Now there are over 500 a year." he said.

The MS Deutschland carries passengers across the world

Simon Howell, of Cardiff Harbour Authority, said the proximity of attraction to the docks made Cardiff ideal for tourists from cruise ships.

"We have long envisaged the capital as a true maritime city, appealing to visitors from the sea," he said.

Sian Parry-Jones, of Cardiff Council, added: "Cardiff Bay and all the attractions on the waterfront are only walking distance away for the people on the ship.

"We're selling Cardiff as a convenient, very different destination."

Major port

The arrival of the MS Deutschland for the first time opens what tourism chiefs hope will be a new chapter in the Cardiff's long maritime history.

That dates back to the Viking era, but the development of the Port of Cardiff into one of the world's major docklands came with the opening up of the south Wales coalfield and iron industry in the 19th Century.

The last of Cardiff's five docks - the Queen Alexandra Dock - opened in 1907, by which time the city was the busiest coal exporting port in the world.

The international price of coal was struck at the Coal Exchange in the docklands.

After World War 1, the port, along with the south Wales coal and steel industries, went into decline and by 1987, only three of the original five docks remained operational.

The decline led, in the 1980s and 1990s, to the creation of one of the largest urban regeneration schemes in Europe as leisure, residential, and commercial developments arrived in the new Cardiff Bay, with tourism playing a major part.