Six decades after its founding in 1966, This Week Hawaii, the state's longest-running visitor publication, is celebrating its 60th anniversary by expanding its hybrid media model. The initiative deepens the brand's reach across all four island editions—Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Kauai—and introduces enhanced digital tracking tools for advertising partners, marking a significant evolution in how the publication serves travelers and local businesses.
Originally launched as a simple print magazine placed in the hands of arriving travelers, This Week Hawaii has grown into the largest visitor publication distribution network in Hawaii, producing more than 1,300 pages of curated content annually. The publication's foundational purpose—to provide a trusted, locally produced guide that orients travelers and connects them with the culture and businesses of each island—remains unchanged after 60 years.
In 2005, This Week Hawaii launched its digital platform, thisweekhawaii.com, extending its reach beyond print. Rather than replacing print, the digital expansion created an integrated model where both formats operate in parallel. Today, the platform, part of the Hagadone Media Group, combines traditional print advertising with digital placements, QR codes, and trackable engagement metrics. These tools give 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.”
One of the key structural distinctions of This Week Hawaii is its commitment to island-specific storytelling. Rather than producing a single statewide publication, the brand maintains four print editions, each supported by locally embedded editorial teams who live and work within the communities they cover. This approach 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 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 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.
