Effect of City Branding Toward City Image, Value Perception and Revisit Intention (Study Toward Domestic Tourist in City of Ambon, Indonesia)

Development in tourism sector has compelled cities to compete in order to attracting more and more tourists, however in certain condition city weakened economy growth has caused some social phenomenon to emerge among citizen. In such condition, municipal government was demanded to be smart to conduct prevention by using several policies. One of the effective and prevalent policies was by revitalize urban tourism using brand strategy approach known as city branding. Just like a product, city would always revisit if it give positive image and value for its visitors. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the effect of city branding toward city image, value perception and revisit intention. This paper was an explanatory study, and data collected was by disseminating questionnaire toward 142 domestic tourists in city of Ambon, Indonesia. Path analysis (SEM) was used to analyze data. Result showed that city branding variable has significant effect toward city image, value perception and revisit intention. City image has significant effect toward value perception but either city image or value perception has insignificant effect toward revisit intention. It was suggested that municipal government should has good synergy with businessman, stakeholders and all community member in its effort to improve promotion and effectiveness of city branding to intensify more visitors. Policies and development of new events should be aimed to facilitate future effort of tourism.