Abstract: Although cruise ship was initiated in the early 19th century, the real cruising carrying tourists did not taken place until the mid-nineteenth century. From being the preferred mode of travel for the world’s social elite and affluent in its inception, cruise tourism has become nowadays a truly mass-market phenomenon. The study on the cruise tourism abroad began in the 1960s and has accumulated so far a very rich research results, the relevant theories and research methods are becoming gradually mature. In contrast, the cruise tourism industry in China is still in its infancy and the relevant studies have lagged far behind. In order to present a scientific reference for promoting the healthy development of the cruise tourism industry in China and urging Chinese scholars to participate in the related studies, the mainstream bibliographic databases were systematically queried, leading to a collection of 225 cruise tourism-related academic publications published between 1961 and 2012. Based on extensive synthesis of previous studies, this paper systematically summarized the achievements in theories, perspectives, methods and practices obtained by foreign scholars. Overall, international academic, especially in the developed western countries, has developed a completed research system, detailed research contents, advanced research methods and fruitful research achievements for cruise tourism. However, the analysis in terms of its contents and meta-data do reveal that the international cruise tourism research has still existed same limitations. Future research is proposed in this paper should concentrate on the following aspects such as the development of emerging markets, the authentic experience of cruise visitors, innovation of service models, local real impacts of cruise tourism, and security and safety of cruise tourism.