in 1880, which became the first ship built with a total steel superstructure, and the SS Valetta built in 1889, which was the first ship to use electric lights. The cruise of the German ship in the Mediterranean Sea and the Near East from 22 January to 22 March 1891, with 241 passengers (including Albert Ballin and his wife), popularized cruises to a wider market. Christian Wilhelm Allers published an illustrated account of it as Backschisch (Baksheesh). The first vessel built exclusively for luxury cruising was of the German Empire, designed by Albert Ballin, general manager of the Hamburg-America Line. The ship was completed in 1900. The practice of luxury cruising made steady inroads into the more established market for transatlantic crossings. In the competition for passengers, ocean liners – being the most famous example – added luxuries such as fine dining, luxury services, and staterooms with finer appointments. In the late-19th century, Albert Ballin, director of the Hamburg-America Line, was the first to send his transatlantic ships out on long southern cruises during the worst of the North Atlantic winter seasons. Other companies followed suit. Some of them built specialized ships designed for easy transformation between summer crossings and winter cruising. In 1897 three luxury liners, all European-owned, offered transportation between Europe and North America. In 1906 the number had increased to seven. The British Inman Line owned , the Cunard Line had and . The White Star Line owned and . La Lorraine and La Savoie sailed for the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. From luxury ocean liners to "megaship" cruising With the advent of large passenger jet aircraft in the 1960s, intercontinental travelers switched from ships to planes, sending the ocean liner trade into a terminal decline. Certain characteristics of older ocean liners made them unsuitable for cruising duties, such as high fuel consumption, deep draught preventing them from entering shallow ports, and cabins (often windowless) designed to maximize passenger numbers rather than comfort. In the late 1950s and 1960s, ships such as Holland America Line's SS Rotterdam (1959), the French Line's SS France (1961), and Cunard Line's RMS (1969) were designed to serve the dual purposes of ocean liner during the northern hemisphere summer months and cruise ship in the winter, incorporating doors and baffles that could be open or closed to divide classes or open the ship to one class, wherein all passengers received roughly the