'THIS WEEK'[1] was the free national tourism newspaper for Wales published between 1988 and 2005, established by Steven Potter and Terry Jackson to provide Local Knowledge Nationwide to visitors.
It laid further claim in 1995 to being the first newspaper published online, to extend local knowledge Worldwide using the original Netscape Navigator v1.0 web browser within months of its 14 December 1994 launch.
Despite these early successes, the newspaper faced the same challenge as its elder contemporaries in making well-curated content pay on the World Wide Web while maintaining a traditional print presence, costly by comparison.
The last edition of the newspaper appeared in 2005 under its associated Staying in Wales masthead with a new "Insight" magazine supplement featuring The Countryside–Y Cefn Gwlad while THIS WEEK went into hibernation for an indefinite period of time.
The previous year, having convinced friend and business mentor Terry Jackson that the newly launched Apple Macintosh 512K was essential to his university studies, he arrived at the City of Lancaster with his new possession and Steve Jobs (RIP) as his all-time hero.
[2] This was to be run in conjunction with the Snowdonia National Park Study Centre,[3] and school visits to the Trawsfynydd nuclear power station whose parent company, Magnox Electric, was keen on educating the next generation of energy consumers.
[4] Destiny intervened when Potter came to stay at Cae Rhys during the 1988 summer recess, ostensibly to help lay out educational programmes for the new centre on his prized Apple Mac, while Jackson researched opportunities for students to let off steam at visitor attractions in the area.
As a result, and with developments hampered by the negative effect on tourism of the 2001/ 2002 foot and mouth outbreak, the newspaper was unable to build on its online investment in Wales and maintain a presence in print at the same time.
Maps became a distinguishing feature of the newspaper, giving it a unique selling proposition (USP) that it was able to carry through to online publishing in conjunction with the Taste of Wales/ Blas ar Gymru Campaign.
Sponsorship from the Welsh Development Agency resulted in advanced, multi-layered, colour location mapping[16] that became the campaign's hallmark, with Cordon Bleu cook Gilli Davies joining the editorial production team.
Sponsorship from Crosville Cymru, later to become absorbed into the Arriva Group, enabled the creation of a fun CC Rover cartoon character whose Designer-Paw-Mark[18] trailed for visitors where to go by bus in North Wales.
A series of sections covering the twelve topographical areas of Wales, supported by editorial content, tables, maps showing the location of attractions, seasonal What's On listings, local News in Brief items and Readers' Letters.
The festival sat perfectly within a developing strategy for arts and culture in Wales[26] and was set to emerge onto a wider stage, strengthening rather than foregoing its sense of local identity as it progressed.
An article entitled The Virtual Wales Tourist appeared in 1995 editions of the newspaper announcing the online presence of THIS WEEK at thisweek.co.uk after release of the Netscape Navigator v1.0 web browser in December 1994.
It was the Taste of Wales/ Blas ar Gymru Campaign, however, that provided the first real opportunity for THIS WEEK to demonstrate the significant advantages the World Wide Web held for Welsh tourism with online interactive mapping at its core.