(CNN) The Thai cave at the center of an international mission to rescue a soccer team and its coach is likely to become a tourist destination, government officials say.

As rescuers worked around the clock to free the 12 boys and the man who coaches them, Thailand's Prime Minster Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Tuesday that the cave in the northern province of Chiang Rai was "likely to become famous nationally and worldwide."

"It will eventually become an important tourist spot," he said in a Facebook live video stream from his office. "Therefore we have to come up with (safety) measures to accommodate the tourism activities."

The prime minister added that in the past authorities lacked a good map of the cave, but that following the mammoth rescue operation "we should have a better diagram to create safety."

The Tham Luang Nang Non cave network made headlines around the world after the boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old coach disappeared on June 23.