Six decades after its founding, This Week Hawaii is marking its 60th anniversary by expanding its hybrid media model, integrating enhanced digital tracking tools for advertisers while maintaining its print distribution across Oahu, Maui, the Big Island, and Kauai. The milestone underscores the publication's evolution from a simple print guide into a data-informed platform that serves both travelers and local businesses.
Founded in 1966, This Week Hawaii has grown into the largest visitor publication distribution network in the state, producing more than 1,300 pages of curated content annually. The publication initially addressed a need for a trusted, locally produced guide to orient travelers and connect them with each island's culture, geography, and businesses. That mission remains unchanged, but the methods have evolved significantly.
In 2005, This Week Hawaii launched its digital platform, thisweekhawaii.com, extending its reach beyond print. Rather than replacing the physical guide, the digital expansion created an integrated model where both formats operate in parallel. Today, the platform combines traditional print advertising with digital placements, QR codes, and trackable engagement metrics, giving local businesses data-informed visibility alongside the tangible presence of a printed guide.
"Reaching this 60-year milestone is a reflection of the trust that travelers and local businesses have placed in us since 1966," said Ed Chung, General Manager of This Week Hawaii. "With more than 1,300 pages of editorial content distributed across four islands and a digital platform that launched 20 years ago, we have spent six decades earning the right to call ourselves Hawaii's visitor guide -- and we do not take that lightly."
A key distinction of This Week Hawaii is its commitment to island-specific storytelling. Rather than a single statewide publication, the brand maintains four print editions -- Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Kauai -- each supported by locally embedded editorial teams. This structure ensures that a traveler picking up the Kauai edition receives content shaped by people who understand the Na Pali Coast differently than someone writing from Honolulu. Each edition carries local nuance that a centralized newsroom could not authentically replicate, positioning This Week Hawaii as a cultural bridge rather than a conventional travel guide.
Print editions continue to be distributed through airports, hotels, resorts, and visitor centers statewide, reaching travelers at the moment they arrive. Alongside each print placement, QR codes connect readers directly to digital content, enabling businesses to track engagement and measure advertising performance. For family-run restaurants, activity operators, and cultural experiences that have partnered with This Week Hawaii across generations, this model offers continuity alongside evolution. Visitors today encounter a resource where the tactile familiarity of a printed guide carries the accountability of digital analytics.
What distinguishes a 60-year publishing legacy is not simply longevity but the accumulation of trust. Travelers who visited Hawaii in the 1970s may have carried a copy of This Week Hawaii in their bags; their children and grandchildren now access the same institution through a smartphone. That continuity across generations, formats, and four distinct island communities is what the milestone represents. As This Week Hawaii enters its seventh decade, its editorial teams across Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Kauai continue the work that began in 1966: helping visitors find their footing in one of the most distinct places on Earth and connecting them with the people and places that make each island worth returning to.
