Viking River Cruises will offer its first European river sailings on a ship dedicated to Chinese cruisers later this fall.

The cruises will take place on the Rhine River between Amsterdam and Basel, using an existing Longship (the company has not revealed which one). Mandarin will be the primary language onboard.

The move is only the first step in a "selection of cruise products" that Viking is developing for the Chinese tourism market, the company said in a statement.

"We believe this is the right decision for the business, as China is the world's biggest outbound tourism market and the number of Chinese outbound tourists [is] expected by industry experts to increase rapidly in the coming years."

The company also noted that the new sailings for Chinese passengers will be separate from the ones that are sold to English-speaking passengers from North America, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. The cruises are currently on sale in the Chinese market.