<p>Previous studies examining the resilience of tourist destinations have typically focused on the magnitude of recovery and not the time taken to recover from a given shock. A longer time to recovery may irrevocably impact the attractiveness of a particular destination, leading to stagnation and decline. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented shock to global tourism followed by heterogenous recovery across nations. In this study we aim to examine the factors affecting temporal resilience of countries to this shock. We have utilised survival analysis techniques to determine the factors affecting post-COVID recovery time in international tourism across 34 international destinations. Using monthly data on international tourist arrivals from January 2017 to December 2022, we estimate accelerated failure time models (AFT) for time to recovery of tourism demand. The primary dependent variable was the time taken for a particular country to reach recovery levels of 30%, 60% and 100% of pre-COVID tourism demand. The key independent variables include monthly averages of international travel restrictions, COVID-19 severity, and exchange rates. Travel restriction emerged as the only variable that has a statistically significant, positive impact on recovery time for all three recovery levels. The consideration of the temporal dimension as a key aspect of resilience is the main theoretical contribution of this study. The key methodological contribution is using survival analysis methods to empirically estimate models affecting time to recovery after a crisis. Policy implications include the consideration of time to recovery as a critical indicator of sustainable tourism.</p>