Objectives: Since 2007, research achievements in cave tourism have been continuously enriched. A systematic review of the literature on cave tourism can provide a comprehensive understanding of the research trends and offer new ideas and important guidance for future research on cave tourism in China. Methods: This paper uses the visualization software CiteSpace to systematically analyze and compare the publication trends, research institutions and authors, journals, and research hotspots of cave tourism in both domestic and international contexts from 2007 to 2024. Results: The results show that: ① The number of domestic research publications showed a fluctuating and decreasing trend, while international research shows a trend of fluctuating growth, and the difference in the number of domestic and foreign cave tourism literature has increased year by year since 2016; ② Research on cave tourism is highly interdisciplinary, involving multiple fields such as geomorphology, hydrogeology, biodiversity, ecological environment, and tourism; ③ Research institutions focused on cave tourism are mainly universities and research institutes in countries or regions with cave and karst landscape resources; ④ Research hotspots in cave tourism include the ecological environment of show caves, evaluation of cave tourism resources, tourism development, cave tourism management, and tourist behavior in caves.