Six decades after its founding in 1966, This Week Hawaii, the state's longest-running visitor publication, is marking its 60th anniversary with the launch of an expanded hybrid media initiative. The new initiative deepens the brand's reach across its four island editions and introduces enhanced digital tracking tools for advertising partners, allowing businesses to measure engagement in real time.
Founded in 1966, This Week Hawaii has grown from a single publication into the largest visitor publication distribution network in the state, producing more than 1,300 pages of curated content annually across Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Kauai. The publication first addressed a need for a trusted, locally produced guide to orient travelers and connect them with the culture and businesses of each island. That mission remains unchanged.
In 2005, the brand launched its digital platform at thisweekhawaii.com, extending its reach beyond print. Rather than replacing the printed 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 General Manager of This Week Hawaii, Ed Chung. “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 structural distinction of This Week Hawaii is its commitment to island-specific storytelling. Rather than producing a single statewide publication, the brand maintains four print editions — Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Kauai — each supported by locally embedded editorial teams who live and work in the communities they cover. This 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 or the mainland. Each edition carries local nuance that a centralized newsroom could not authentically replicate.
Print editions continue to be distributed through airports, hotels, resorts, and visitor centers across the state, 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 in ways that traditional print alone never allowed. For the businesses that have partnered with This Week Hawaii across generations — family-run restaurants, activity operators, and cultural experiences — this model offers continuity alongside evolution.
As This Week Hawaii enters its seventh decade, the brand’s editorial teams across the four islands 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.