Abstract :
One of the efforts to introduce the potential of an area in the eyes of the outside world is through
city branding. City branding is defined as a management for the image of a region/city
accompanied by strategic innovation and coordination in terms of economic, commercial,
social, cultural, and government regulations. Meanwhile, tourist visits are one of the
destinations for city branding, because it will increase the country's foreign exchange earnings,
one of which comes from the tourism sector. Ambon City or commonly known as Ambon Manise
is the capital city of Maluku Province. In addition to being the center of various aspects, Ambon
has long been known for its music and is even marked by the large number of songwriters and
singers from Ambon City. The city of Ambon itself became the first city in Southeast Asia to be
designated by UNESCO as a music city, so that the city of Ambon got the nickname Ambon
City of Music. However, currently the Ambon City of Music tagline in the minds of consumers
is only at the brand awareness stage. The purpose of this study was to prove whether the city
branding that raised Ambon City of Music had an effect on the decision to visit tourists. The
method used in this study is the causality method with a quantitative approach which measures
the relationship between two variables, namely city branding and visiting decisions.
Meanwhile, the quantitative approach is a research approach that uses numerical data and is
processed using statistical methods. So that the results obtained are that there is a relationship
between city branding on the decision to visit tourists in Ambon City of Music with the city
branding variable simultaneously having a significant and positive effect on the decision
variable to visit tourists in Ambon City of Music.