THE INFLUENCE OF A HERITAGE CITY BRANDING ON THE CITY’S BRAND IDENTITY AND BRAND IMAGE, AND TOURISTS’ VISITING DECISION

The growing emphasis on urban management has driven a trend toward city branding to enhance the city attractiveness. This study investigates the influence of city branding on the city’s brand identity and brand image, and tourists’ visiting decision. This study was done in a quantitative approach. The data was collected by distributing online questionnaire, targeting visitors of Yogyakarta city. A total of 216 respondents participated in this study, obtained using a purposive sampling method. The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in AMOS 21.0. The results show that the city branding directly influences the brand identity and visiting decision, but does not directly influence the brand image. Furthermore, the brand identity has a positive, significant and direct influence on the brand image and visiting decision. The brand identity mediates the influence of city branding on the visiting decision. The brand identity also mediates the influence of city branding on the brand image. Lastly, the brand image mediates the influence of brand identity on the visiting decision.


INTRODUCTION
Tourism industry is currently competing on a global scale to attract tourists in order to determine the quality of the country's position.Many countries are now relying on place branding to establish a distinct and unique identity in the minds of stakeholders (Foroudi, Gupta, Ktchen, & Foroudi, 2016).The place branding promotes the development by forming and maintaining a favorable and consistent image of the place (Gupta, Foroudi, Väätänen, Gupta, & Tiu, 2018).This phenomenon leads to several attempts to develop managerial processes to capitalize and improve the competitiveness.The city is often the emphasis of place branding in tourism marketing (Pedeliento & Kavaratzis, 2019).
The primary goal of developing city branding is to position the city in a globalized world (Joo & Seo, 2018).It is a social construct that reflects the consequence of interactions between people, institutions, and practices.The concept of urban identity expresses value, characteristics, and uniqueness in introducing the city (Lucarelli, 2013).The city branding incorporates a variety of factors, including geographical traits, traditions, customs, and lifestyle (Yaldiz, Aydin, & Büyükşahin Sıramkaya, 2014).The goal of city branding is to build a public image of a city (Ochkovskaya & Gerasimenko, 2018).The city branding is important in urban management and marketing, because it identifies strengths and weaknesses of the city (Cassia, Vigolo, Ugolini, & Baratta, 2018) and is essential to the urban planning strategy process.Urban planning and marketing complement each other in establishing the city branding to advance the city's competitiveness.
City officials have been concerned about the issue of city branding.The city branding is an integral aspect of partnerships between public and private institutions focusing on place management or developing place-based products, providing a platform for attracting talented and privileged individuals.The city branding has been adopted as a contribution to the growth of the creative industry (Bonakdar & Audirac, 2020).Researches on the role of city branding have been widely conducted to understand its impact on developing a strategy for delivering a city to its target public, such as residents, workers, entrepreneurs, investors, and tourists (Sameh, El-Aziz, & Hefnawy, 2018).In terms of marketing, the city branding is a marketing stimulus that appeals to potential visitors.The city branding is a starting point for purchasing decisions from the stimulusresponse perspective of purchasing behavior (Kotler, Keller, Manceau, & Dubois, 2016).It requires a significant shift in mentality toward the entire marketing activities.The branding of the destination city can be defined as the set of representations, perceptions, beliefs, ideas, and impressions that individuals have about the features and activities accessible in a destination city (Bouchon, 2014).Developing the environment, 'feelings' and perception of the city in people's minds are all part of city branding (Warren & Dinnie, 2017).
Several cities throughout the world have begun to implement the city branding.The capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen, developed a city branding strategy with the name "C(open) Hagen," which highlights the word open.It brings the image that Copenhagen is a welcoming city for all.Furthermore, it is also a strategy of its government to promote the city tourism.Meanwhile, using the same approach, Malaysia developed a tagline of "Malaysia, Truly Asia," which represents the country's remarkable diversity.It combines Malaysia's uniqueness and charm, making it an attractive tourist destination.This phenomenon proves that the city branding improves the tourism sector.However, new approaches to the city branding must capitalize on the public's symbolic power as well as the broader and more immense potential that remains unexplored (Bonakdar & Audirac, 2020).
Branding a heritage city tourism has been investigated from a political science perspective as guidance for city officials' decision-making.However, specific investigations from a marketing perspective are still limited.This present study aims to address this research gap by examining the influence of heritage city branding in visiting decision-making from the marketing perspective, specifically from a customer-based brand equity perspective.Although a previous research by Purwanto & Soliha (2017) has developed the framework, this study provides several improvements in the measurement and data analysis.To the best of authors' knowledge, previous researches measuring heritage-based brand identity are also limited.Thus, this study attempts to develop a specific heritage tourism measurement and performs a more comprehensive data analysis based on a SEM-based complex model.
Considering that the city branding has a more considerable impact on city development and tourists' visiting decisions, this study aims to understand how heritage city branding strategy affects the brand identity, brand image, and visiting decisions.The research location of this study was in Yogyakarta citya heritage city in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.Yogyakarta city is one of the cities in Indonesia that has adopted the city branding with a tagline of "Jogja Never Ending Asia" in 2015 and it has now changed into "Jogja Istimewa" (Special Jogja).Yogyakarta City Tourism Office reported that there were 64.757 foreign tourists visiting tourism attractions in Yogyakarta.Meanwhile, there were only 10,765,386 domestic tourists, bringing a total of 10,830,143 tourists in 2020.This condition is inextricably linked to the city's marketing strategy carried out by the government to attract tourists.By identifying the concept of Yogyakarta city as a heritage city, this study develops measurements to determine the city branding of Yogyakarta as a heritage city and measure aspects of brand identity.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND EMPIRICAL STUDIES
Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) is a marketing theory developed by Keller (Kotler, Keller, & Chernev, 2016) that focuses on the perception and value consumers associated with a brand.It emphasizes that a brand's strength and success are ultimately determined by how consumers think, feel, and response to the brand.The CBBE is often represented as a pyramid with four main levels: brand identity, meaning, response, and resonance.It comprises several components or dimensions that collectively contribute to the strength and value of a brand in the eyes of consumers: brand awareness, brand association, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand image.According to CBBE, the concept of city brand image refers to the idea of brand image borrowed in the place branding.An effective city branding influences the tourists' visiting decision by influencing the stakeholders' perception of the city's brand identity and brand image, influencing the visiting decisions.The research framework of this study includes several constructs, such as the city branding, brand identity, brand image, and visiting decisions.The following section discusses the conceptual definition of the abovementioned constructs.
The city branding refers to a set of brand attributes of a city that serve as foundation for generating positive perceptions from a wide range of people (Warren & Dinnie, 2017).It is defined as the management of a city destination image through strategic innovation and economic, commercial, socio-cultural, and government regulations (Anholt, 2011).It is an integrated marketing strategy used to develop a distinguishing picture of a city (Kasapi & Cela, 2017).The idea that appears in the people's mind may lead to the intention to visit the city.The city branding strategies should be used appropriately, as a confusion can frequently occur between national, state, city, and town brands, resulting in more harms than benefits (Moreno-Gómez, Lafuente, & Vaillant, 2018).
The concept of brand identity is to communicate a brand in a way that makes it more easily recognized and offers a competitive advantage that people will remember.It simply communicates a city to the people.A city's brand identity refers to the way a person perceives and recalls a city differently from others (Casais & Monteiro, 2019).The brand identity is crucial for creating a better memory and create a competitive advantage that people will recognize.A brand can create a co-creation with its customers by developing an appealing brand identity and internalization, resulting in a stronger brand image and higher brand value (Alvarado-Karste & Guzmán, 2020).People will be aware of the city because they have the basic knowledge of it.City slogans and logos are part of the core concepts visible to society for communicating a city (Anholt, 2011).The city's brand identity is a unique concept from the socio-culture meaning produced by any part of the experience in a city (Botschen, Promberger, & Bernhart, 2017).The city's identity is always created by the city officials and visitors (Gilboa, Jaffe, Vianelli, Pastore, & Herstein, 2015).It is one of the sub-dimensions of urban entanglement that is frequently criticized.The city officials must increase the residents' involvement in co-creating a city brand, their perception of brand identity and authenticity, and their fit with their sense of place (Casais & Monteiro, 2019).
The brand image is a psychological perception, including what people think of the brand, and its expectations, beliefs, and emotions.The city's brand image can be defined as a collection of representations, perceptions, beliefs, ideas, and impressions that individuals have about the features and activities accessible in a place (Bouchon, 2014).Everyone has a unique perspective in various ways.The brand image is defined as a consumer's assessment of the brand in a market (Kotler et al., 2016).Since the brand image is based on consumer perception, consistent communication techniques might result in a variety subjective outcomes, creating measurement challenges (Alvarado-Karste & Guzmán, 2020).Personal experience, media, or other resources can be used to form the basis of measurement.The city's brand image can be defined as a collection of representations, perceptions, beliefs, ideas, and impressions that individuals have about the features and activities accessible in a place (Bouchon, 2014).The city's image expresses all the objectives of information, precedence of numbers, imagination, and emotional thinking of individuals or groups about a particular city.The evaluation or understanding of a city's attributes can be used to construct its image (Doosti, Jalilvand, Asadi, Khazaei Pool, & Mehrani Adl, 2016).
In a city branding framework, the visiting decision is similar to the purchasing decision.The purchasing decision is an option between two or more alternatives (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015).It is the consumer's reaction to marketing stimuli, recognizing their preferences and needs, analyzing the other options, and determining which product or service best suits their desires (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015).The purchasing decision process is divided into five stages: need recognition, information research, evaluation of alternatives, final purchase, and post-purchase behavior (Kotler, Keller, Manceau, & Dubois, 2016).Meanwhile, a decision-making process involves a visitor evaluating and choosing a necessary choice depending on several factors (Satyarini, Rahmanita, & Setarnawat, 2017).Therefore, the visitors will consider several factors before coming to a specific place.
The concept of city branding has been broadly defined, which, in general, refers to a good name or reputation in the minds of the consumers in terms of brand knowledge and could be understood as a network of associations in the consumers (Braun, Kavaratzis, & Zenker, 2013).City branding efforts must combine culture and history, economic growth and social development, infrastructure and architecture, and landscape and environment to create an identity that can compete and is acceptable to everyone.The city branding strategy is related to aspects of brand identity, brand positioning, and brand image (Braun et al., 2013).The city branding can help a city's promotion strategy by making it easier to recall.An earlier study discovered that the city branding influences the brand identity (Kasapi & Cela, 2017).Therefore, the first hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H1: City branding has a positive influence on the brand identity.
The place branding strategies aim to create a symbolic and comprehensive image of a city and subsequently communicate this image locally and internationally (Acuti, Mazzoli, Donvito, & Chan, 2018).Every city branding has an agenda to rebuild the city' imagey.A previous research showed that the city branding significantly affected the brand image (Putra, Yulianto, & Kusumawati, 2019).Other prior results showed that two dimensions of city branding (city uniqueness and city authenticity) significantly influenced the city image (Hussein, 2020).For this reason, the second hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H2: City branding has a positive influence on the brand image.The city's brand identity differs from that of other cities and is nurtured by the local government in order to attract the visitors, residents, enterprises, and etc. (Wäckerlin, Hoppe, Warnier, & Jong, 2019).The city's conceptual logo impacts the success of city branding as a reinforcer of brand equity through increased consumer awareness, recognition, and royalties (Hakala & Lemmetyinen, 2013).A previous research showed that the city's brand identity influenced the city' brand image and loyalty (Peighambari, Sattari, Foster, & Wallström, 2016), indicating that brand identity has no significant influence on the brand image.Conversely, Chan, Suryadipura, & Kostini (2021) found that the brand identity positively impacted the brand image.As a result, the third hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H3: Brand identity has a positive influence on the brand image.
The brand identity is a concept generated from a company responsible for developing various products with unique qualities and offering a sustainable competitive advantage.The city branding and image in the tourism industry are essential in developing an intention to visit, which leads to the visiting decision (Chan, Suryadipura, & Novel, 2022;Kusumawati, Rahayu, & Putra, 2022).The study also found that the brand identity positively influenced the visiting decisions.Thus, the fourth hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H4: Brand identity has a positive influence on the visiting decisions.
The brand image is a perception shared by a group of people.A city's brand image affects the residents' practices, and their policies, and decision-making processes (Wäckerlin et al., 2019).A previous research (Kusumawati et al., 2022) showed that the brand image positively affected the decision to visit.Other researches (Satyarini et al., 2017;Doosti et al., 2016) found a similar result on the influence of destination image on the visiting decision.Hence, the fifth hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H5: Brand image has a positive influence on the visiting decision.
A previous study has proven that the city branding positively influenced the intention to visit, which could affect the decision to stay (Kusumawati et al., 2022).However, it was also revealed that the two dimensions of city brandingcity uniqueness and city authenticitydid not directly affect the revisiting intention (Hussein, 2020).Conversely, it was found that generating good feelings and brand associations were two powerful marketing methods that increased the probability of tourist visits and, as a result, it might affect the choice of a destination and the likelihood of future revisits (Park & Lee, 2019).Consequently, the sixth hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H6: City branding has a positive influence on the visiting decision.
The city branding summarizes all the beliefs and physical, cultural, economic, social, and psychological attributes associated with the city and its identity.It is a way to communicate the strengths of the city and its dynamic identity.The main component of brand identity is the meaning behind the brand which they want to convey to their target consumers (Souiden, Ladhari, & Chiadmi, 2017).The brand identity represents the core qualities of the brand, which are never the center of the brand's success and meaning of the brand.Meanwhile, the city branding can be established through the co-creation with the city residents and creating brand identity (Casais & Monteiro, 2019).A previous research (Purwanto & Soliha, 2017) showed the mediating effect of The Influence of a Heritage City Branding on the City's Brand Identity and Brand Image,and Tourists' Visiting Decision 173 brand identity on the relationship between city branding and visiting decision.Accordingly, the seventh hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H7: Brand identity mediates the influence of city branding on visiting decisions.
The city branding is such a marketing application that identifies a focus changing from the rational character of marketing interventions to create the city's emotional, mental, and psychological associations (Braun, 2012).The concept of city branding is relevant to its management and control of the brand image to attract the tourists (Poço & Casais, 2019).In addition, the city branding is a determinant of brand image.The brand image is a mental image of a product held by the consumers (Gilboa et al., 2015).A previous study found that the city's brand image mediated the influence of city branding on the visiting decision (Purwanto & Soliha, 2017).Subsequently, the eight hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H8: Brand image mediates the influence of city branding on the visiting decisions.
The city branding is defined as a communication system that closely relates to the image and identity of the city as a whole (Shirvani Dastgerdi & De Luca, 2019).Meanwhile, the brand image is the target audience's view of the brand and it may differ from the desired brand identity.The city's brand image reflects the sum of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that connect numerous people to a city (Manyiwa, Priporas, & Wang, 2018).During the process of city branding, the city image and identity play an essential role in making the city unique.The city image can be best interpreted at the intersection of city branding and city identity, because it is an inseparable part of both.Based on the previous research Purwanto & Soliha (2017), the ninth hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H9: Brand identity mediates the influence of city branding on the brand image.
The brand identity has an essential and decisive role in the tourism sector by creating an image in the target audience's minds that ultimately influences the final decision when choosing a city as their destination (Foroudi et al., 2016).The brand identity explains how a brand wants to be perceived, while the brand image is an interpretation of the brand created by the consumers (Poço & Casais, 2019).A previous study found that the brand image mediated the relationship between brand identity and visiting decisions (Purwanto & Soliha, 2017).Thereby, the tenth hypothesis that can be proposed is as follows: H10: Brand image mediates the influence of brand identity on the visiting decision.
The following Figure 1 presents the research framework of this study:

RESEARCH METHODS
This study was done in a quantitative approach with an explanatory research design.An online questionnaire was distributed to the visitors of Yogyakarta city.The population of this study consisted of all visitors who had visited Yogyakarta city, while the sampling method used was a non-probability sampling with a purposive sampling technique.The respondents of this study must be visitors visiting Yogyakarta city in early 2022 with a minimum age of 18 and understood the city branding of Yogyakarta city.Data was collected by distributing the Google link to visitors who met in strategic tourism destinations around Yogyakarta.A total of 216 respondents participated in this research and responded to the distributed questionnaire.The questionnaire was developed from several previous research findings.Measurements of the city branding, brand identity, brand image, visiting decisions were adapted from Chan et al. (2022), Anholt (2011), Vijaranakorn &Shannon (2017), andHusna, Rini, &Sembiring (2018), respectively.This study performed an instrument testing before the final data analysis to test the data's validity, reliability, and normality.The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in the AMOS application by referring to the procedures developed by Hair, Babin, & Anderson (2014) to test the proposed hypotheses.

Instrument Testing
The loading factor value greater than 0.5 was used as the indicator for the validity test (Confirmatory Factor Analysis test) (Hair et al., 2014), while the construct reliability (CR) value of higher than 0.7 was the indicator for the reliability test.The results shown in the following Table 2 show that the items are valid and reliable.

Testing the Goodness of Fit of the Model
To determine whether the hypothesis testing could be performed using the proposed research model, the model was converted into a structural equation and it was tested for the goodness of fit.The following Figure 2 presents the results as follows:

Figure 2. Model Test Results
The results of testing the goodness of fit are shown in Table 3 below.The results consist of the Goodness of Fit Index, including Chi-square, Probability, MIN/DF, RMSEA, GFI, CFI, TLI, and AGFI with each cut-off value.Based on Table 3, the results show that the model meets the goodness of fit criteria, since four of eight indicators are fit.Therefore, it can be concluded that the model is close to being a good fit.The CMIN / DF value is 1.995, lower than the cut-off value of 2.00.The RMSEA value is 0.068, lower than the cut-off value of 0.080, used to compensate for the chi-square values in large samples.The GFI (Goodness of Fit Index)showing the overall degree of conformity of the model calculated from the residual squared of the predicted model versus the actual datahas a value of 0.889, higher than the cut-off value of ≥ 0.90, indicating a marginal fit research model.The AGFI (adjusted GFI)which shows the ratio between the proposed degree of freedom and the degree of freedom of the null modelhas a value of 0.843, lower than the cut-off value of ≥ 0.90, indicating a marginal fit research model.The CFIan index insensitive to sample size and model complexityhas a value of 0.953, higher than the cut-off value of ≥ 0.90, indicating a fit research model.The TLIreferring to a conformity index less affected by the sample sizehas a value of 0.940, higher than the cut-off value of ≥ 0.90, indicating a fit research model.The overall goodness of fit measurements above demonstrates that the proposed research model can be used for further data analysis.

Hypothesis Testing
The proposed hypotheses were tested for data analysis and to verify the relationships in the proposed model.The regression value shows the coefficient of influence between the variables, as shown in Table 4 below.The first hypothesis proposes that the city branding has a positive influence on the brand identity.The results show a regression value of 0.232, the CR value of 4.527, and the p-value of less than 0.05.This indicated that the city branding has a positive influence on the brand identity.Thus, the first hypothesis is supported empirically.This finding implied that the city branding of Yogyakarta city was critical in forming its brand identity.This finding is consistent with a previous research (Purwanto & Soliha, 2017).Thus, the city branding of Yogyakarta city might become one of the strategies for the Yogyakarta city officials to communicate its uniqueness, expected to be the identity of Yogyakarta city.
The second hypothesis proposes that the city branding has a positive influence on the brand image.The results show a regression value of 0.119, the CR value of 1.662, and the p-value of 0.097.It suggested that the city branding fails to influence the brand image.Therefore, the second hypothesis is not supported empirically.This finding contradicts several previous researches (Putra et al., 2019), (Hussein, 2020), and (Purwanto & Soliha, 2017).However, it was interesting to note that developing the city branding of Yogyakarta city did not automatically improve its image.There was a cognitive process in the Yogyakarta visitors' minds in which they first formed the Yogyakarta city brand identity perception before they perceived the image of Yogyakarta city.This finding highlighted the Yogyakarta city officials on the importance of developing the Yogyakarta city uniqueness and identities to create a positive perception of the Yogyakarta city image among the tourists.
The third hypothesis proposes that the brand identity has a positive influence on the brand image.The results show a regression value of 0.621, the CR value of 5.562, and the p-value of 0.000.This confirms that the brand identity has a positive influence on the brand image.Thus, the third hypothesis is supported empirically.A previous study by Chen & Li (2022) found a similar result.This finding suggested the Yogyakarta city officials that building an iconic brand identity of Yogyakarta city was crucial to its brand image.The Yogyakarta potential visitors would perceive the Yogyakarta image based on its uniqueness and identities, which were delivered to them even before their visit.
The fourth hypothesis proposes that the brand identity has a positive influence on the visiting decision.The results show a regression value of 0.159, the CR value of 2.024, and the pvalue of 0.043.This finding indicates that the brand identity has a positive influence on the visiting The Influence of a Heritage City Branding on the City's Brand Identity and Brand Image,and Tourists' Visiting Decision 179 decision.Thus, the fourth hypothesis is supported empirically.This finding implied that developing an enticing Yogyakarta city's brand identity had proven to be able to attract potential visitors to decide to visit the city.Its brand identity formed the potential visitors' perceptions about Yogyakarta city and expected experiences of visiting the city.These perceptions would influence them whether or not to visit Yogyakarta city.
The fifth hypothesis proposes that the brand image has a positive influence on the visiting decision.The results show a regression value of 0.141, the CR value of 2.431, and the p-value of 0.015.It suggests that the brand image has a positive influence on the visiting decision.Therefore, the fifth hypothesis is supported empirically.This finding is consistent with a previous research by Kusumawati et al. (2022).This finding also supported the importance of creating a city's brand image to influence the visitors' decision to visit.Before deciding to visit a particular city, the visitors would recall their cognitive memories about the city's image.If they had a positive image of the city, it was easier for them to decide to visit.
The sixth hypothesis proposes that the city branding has a positive influence on the visiting decision.The results show a regression value of 0.170, the CR value of 3.374, and the p-value of less than 0.05.It indicates that the city branding has a positive influence on the visiting decision.Hence, the sixth hypothesis is supported empirically.This finding is consistent with previous researches by Kusumawati et al. (2022); Park & Lee (2019), but not the one by Hussein (2020).This finding emphasized the importance of developing city branding strategies that had directly impacted the visitors' decisions.The potential visitors were convinced by appealing city branding because they had created expectations about the city's attractiveness.
This study compares the value of the standardized direct effect to the indirect effect to assess the mediating effect of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables using the mediating variables.The mediating effect existed when the standardized indirect effect exceeded the standardized direct effect.The following Table 5 and Table 6 show the results of direct and indirect effect testing.
The eight hypothesis proposes that the brand image mediates the influence of city branding on the visiting decision.However, the results show that the eight hypothesis cannot be supported empirically, as the mediating effect of brand image on the influence of city branding on the visiting decision did not exist.This phenomenon did not align with the previous research which showed that the more the city managed and controlled its image, the higher the number of visitors (Poço & Casais, 2019).
The ninth hypothesis proposes that the brand identity mediates the influence of city branding on the brand image.The results show that the relationship between the two variables have a value of 0.121, smaller than 0.147.Therefore, the ninth hypothesis can be supported empirically, where the brand identity is able to mediate the influence of city branding on the brand image.This finding demonstrated that the city branding was critical to building a city's brand identity, which shaped the brand image.
The tenth hypothesis proposes that the brand image mediates the influence of brand identity on the visiting decision.The results show that the relationship between the two variables have a value of 0.000.Thus, the tenth hypothesis can be supported empirically, where the brand image mediates the influence of brand identity on the visiting decisions.This finding implied that building a brand identity would result to a good image, influencing the visiting decisions.

CONCLUSION, SUGGESTION, AND LIMITATION
This study proves that the city branding was crucial in the city management as it related to attracting the potential visitors.The first hypothesis of this study confirms that the city branding positively influences the city brand identity.However, the second hypothesis proves that the city branding does not affect the brand image.The third and fourth hypotheses support that the brand identity is essential in affecting the brand image and visiting decisions.Similarly, the fifth and sixth hypotheses also suggest that the visiting decision is affected by the brand image and city branding.
Meanwhile, the mediating effect testing proves that the brand identity does not mediate the influence of city branding on the visiting decisions, nor the mediating effect of brand image on the influence of city branding on the visiting decision.In contrast, this study confirms the mediating effect of brand identity on the influence of city branding on the brand image and the mediating effect of brand image on the influence of brand identity on the visiting decision.
The results this research implied that developing the city's branding, brand identity, and image was essential in the face of competition among the cities to increase the tourist visits.Although the city's branding did not directly influence the city's image, it has been shown to have a substantial influence on the success of developing the city's brand identity and uniqueness.Strong and attractive city branding shaped the city's brand identity and image, influencing the visiting decision.The city governments must put more attention on defining the city branding they would build to maintain the existence of their city's position in the minds of potential visitors.Thus, the positioning strategy must be comprehensively adopted in building the urban tourism.
This study has several limitations.In terms of sample size, this study has small number of respondents.Their occupations were also limited to only several occupations.Most of the respondents were also university students, which might not represent the variety of the city's The Influence of a Heritage City Branding on the City's Brand Identity and Brand Image,and Tourists' Visiting Decision 181 visitors.Future researches are suggested to include more respondents with a broader range of demographic profile to improve the generalizability of the research findings.Further, this study also has limited number of variables developed in the research framework.Future researches are suggested to incorporate more possible variables, such as individual congruency with the city ambience.Hence, the self-congruence theory could be incorporated as the underpinning theory.Furthermore, cultural aspects, city characteristics, city life quality, and further consequences of the decision to visit might also be considered to improve the complexity of the future research framework.

Figure
Figure 1.Conceptual Framework