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This paper discusses the urban management challenges in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area. Before examining Greater Kuala Lumpur's economic and social environment, we will look at the factors that make it a competitive and fiscally sound entity. When considering urban development and redevelopment, we consider how proposed and ongoing projects, as well as plans, hierarchical links, and road networks, contributed to the increase. Because there is no urban growth boundary, land use change and rural encroachment, as well as environmental degradation and the impact of national economic projects on urban expansion, are both rapid and linear in the analysis. This paper also considers how to manage linear development that results in the creation of new suburbs. Finally, we propose strategies for achieving sustainable urban expansion and management by balancing the financial and governance capacities of Greater Kuala Lumpur local governments.

The purpose of this paper is to present how the state government can successfully intervene in providing better quality of urban living standard in Malaysia.

The paper approaches the issue of state intervention by using a case study of a former squatters’ colony area in Bandar Baru Sentul in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.

The paper establishes that for many decades the governance of Kuala Lumpur has played an active role in designing and implementing a wide range of housing policies to eradicate squatters’ settlement in the city, consequently fulfilling the aspirations of low‐income people to become part of the home owning democracy.

This paper attempts to encourage public policy makers and local authorities to undertake a more active role in providing better quality of urban living standard through the establishment of strong institutional capacity.

The paper provides information on how the state government provides a range of mixed policies to rehabilitate squatters’ colonies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the important property specific criteria for office occupation decision making by tenants of purpose built office buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It attempts to provide more definitive information on office space occupation to prospective property marketers, managers, owners and investors.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to identify the important criteria which were earlier selected by expert panels. The outcome was then analysed through the principal component analysis and importance factor index adopted from an earlier study. The findings from the survey can then be used to examine the relative importance of the identified criteria through the use of a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) technique.

Four main criteria could be identified under the property specific criteria. Six of the “building features, services and management” attributes have higher rankings than the attributes under the “financial” considerations, mainly rent. the high rank attributes under the main criteria of “location” relate to the prestige and accessibility of the building while the high rank criteria under the main “lease” criteria relate to the monetary considerations of the lease arrangement. The high rank criteria under the main criteria of “building features, services and management” relate to the management and building services rather than the design/space provision.

The study area is confined to Kuala Lumpur city centre commercial area and covers prime office buildings.

Office occupation studies have been established in developed countries but are very limited in Malaysia. This study attempts to relate to the current office market developments and to seek the preferences of the various categories of tenants at a later stage.

City has a continuous need to diversify its products and services to ensure longer tourists’ stays and a profitable tourism industry. Kuala Lumpur is one of the most popular cities in the world, and within its vicinity, Batu Caves are not only an important Hindu religious site, but also a popular tourist attraction. Guided by the four realms of experience dimensions (Pine and Gilmore, 1998), the purpose of this paper is to analyze 54 essays written by university students, to examine the experience of their visit to Batu Caves. The findings confirmed the application of all the four realm dimensions – entertainment, educational, esthetic and escapist – revealing both positive and negative aspects of the experience. Batu Caves may capitalize on the positive experiences as pointers to create an effective marketing communication, while negative experiences are opportunities to devise appropriate corrective measures, and perhaps further develop tourism products and services that would appeal to the visitors’ experience.

This study employed a qualitative research strategy to examine visitors’ experiences at Batu Caves using the four realms of experience theory as coined by Pine and Gilmore (1998). A total of 54 undergrads were asked to describe their visit to Batu Caves (Lucia-Palacios et al., 2016) providing a complete insight of their opinions, feelings and perceptions (Jüttner et al., 2013) using the essay writing method.

The authors discovered firm evidence of the theory’s application, revealing the expected four experiential dimensions in explaining experience at a cultural religious site, extending the description to include its positive and negative aspects, all of which are useful for destination management. The study points out a lot of aspects that must be managed by the site, such as the poor esthetic experience (e.g. smell, rubbish, graffiti, etc.), controlling the animal aggression (i.e. monkeys) and perhaps develop new products and services which could enhance some experiences (e.g. cultural escapism through cultural performances in which visitors could participate).

The main weakness of the research is perhaps the qualitative research work in which data were collected from essays written by the university students. Data of this nature prevent us from being able to generalize the findings and reflect on the experience to the general public.

Tourist stays in Kuala Lumpur could be enhanced by providing meaningful, deep and memorable experiences. Tourist attractions such as Batu Caves should continuously examine the experience that they provide to the visitors. Batu Caves’ management could continuously measure its tourists’ experience provisions, as tourists’ needs evolve over time. From the results they could revamp their products and services offering to ensure the sustainability of Batu Caves’ natural and cultural appeal among visitors and tourists alike.

The outcome provides a better understanding of the current tourism product and services at the destination that have an impact on a visitor’s experience. The findings will assist the Batu Caves’ management to revise and develop the products and service offerings to the visitors.

This paper aims to explain the relationships between three dimensions of stakeholders’ integration and competitiveness focusing on 226 industrial corporations. It aims to investigate the influences of stakeholders’ integration on three dimensions of competitiveness.

The study adopts a cross-sectional study using a self-reported questionnaire. The collected data are analysed using structural equation modelling technique based on AMOS.

The results revealed that knowledge of the stakeholders per se will not provide any contribution to the different dimensions of competitiveness. Companies should extend their focus to adapt behaviours in line with stakeholders’ interests to gain competitive advantages. The data showed that in line with the stakeholders’ theory concept, adaptive behaviour dimension positively affects the three dimensions of competitiveness.

There are several limitations that should be taken into consideration. First, the study used a self-reported questionnaire filled in by managers in the study sample; therefore, survey data might be subject to social desirability bias. Second, this study was conducted in Libya, which is considered a developing country, and, thus, caution should be taken when generalizing the results of the study.

To date, there is no an empirical evidence on how environmental stakeholders’ integration might affect firm competitiveness. Previous literature has investigated this issue using different environmental practices. However, none have used stakeholders’ integration in the environmental domain as a predictor to competitiveness. Therefore, the paper contributes to the body of knowledge by stating and testing the potential contributions of stakeholders’ integration to the multidimensional approach of competitiveness.

Functioning as space connectors, path structures in urban parks may rarely present social interaction opportunities, although centralized activity spaces are available. This paper investigated the interrelationships between the visual and physical accessibility attributes of path structure and their impacts on passive social interaction intensity across urban parks in Kuala Lumpur.

The concept of social interaction has been studied elsewhere in social cohesion, social affiliation and sense of communication. Still, it has not been studied in the context of urban park design. This study employed mixed methods using an adaptive and unique combination of qualitative and quantitative data collections to analyze urban parks with a bit of visual vegetation barrier. The experiential landscape method was applied to determine visual accessibility by interpreting experiential landscape maps. The space syntax method based on quantitative analysis is considered to measure physical accessibilities and vigorous activities along the designated paths by conducting integration analysis and gate observation. The data were crossed-analyzed using a Geographic Information System (GIS) classification technique, correlation analysis and Microsoft combo-charts to generate the relationship between patterns of activities and their accessibilities.

The results suggested that designated paths with higher accessibility attributes, impressively more elevated than other tracks, could influence the intensity of passive social interactions. The findings supported the understanding that activity nodes and active areas adjoining designated routes could make accessibility attribute areas more critical. These findings verify that visually enriching the spaces along the path structure toward activities is a pivotal contributor to urban planners and designers to enhance the paths’ local integration (LI) and visual accessibility to predict more passive eye contact among park visitors.

The proposed interrelationship among variables in this study has limitations because of not considering other qualitative methods and techniques like cognitive maps and interview simultaneously. These techniques could discover why some paths generate more passive eye contact among park users (Mohammadi Tahroodi, 2018).

Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020 emphasizes Kuala Lumpur’s unique image as a tropical garden city via preserving and developing the iconic historical urban parks in the city center (CHKL, 2004, pp. 3–3). The latest Draft Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2040 has outlined the strategy to achieve a conducive, good-quality neighborhood that encourages social interaction. The findings could assist urban planners and designers better public parks by considering accessibility and permeability aspects of design. This research endorses the appropriateness of interrelationship between accessibility attributes of path structure and social interaction in urban design research, which local urban designers have not fully considered until now. Evaluating the visual convenience of designated paths and assessing LI of the axial lines constructing each designated route of urban parks during the primary stage could enable urban designers to estimate to what extent the paths are accessible and respond to passive social interaction. Then they could enrich with salient landmarks, views and activity nodes to make them attractive. The considerable number of designated paths connections, specifically while they shape the sides of activity nodes, could increase the connectivity and integration of spaces within the parks. These patterns of positioning the activity nodes make the designated routes more legible and provide ease of movement. As a result, it will give urban park users more information about the activities. Allowing people to use the paths will increase people’s presence and, subsequently, passive social interaction. One way is to locate accessible lands that provide social activities at direct visual access paths within urban parks for legibility.

The socially responsive urban design enhances the quality of life and provides life satisfaction, happiness and society’s overall health. Being in urban social parks in any passive and active situations has psychological benefits. It facilitates relief and rests from a stressful modern lifestyle that significantly impacts their mental health and well-being. The framework applied in this research integrates the social, spatial and physical aspects of parks design. With this regard, principles and indicators facilitate physically and socially attractive urban parks for Kuala Lumpur city center and applicable to similar contexts elsewhere.

The concept of social interaction has been studied elsewhere in social cohesion, social affiliation and sense of communication. Still, it has not been studied in the context of urban park design. This study employed mixed methods using an adaptive and unique combination of qualitative and quantitative data collections to analyze urban parks with a bit of visual vegetation barrier.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the socio‐demographic factors affecting food safety knowledge/practice and the effectiveness of food safety strategies of hawkers in an urban and less urban setting of Malaysia.

A total of 50 hawkers from Kuala Lumpur and Taiping were given a questionnaire and observed in their food safety practice (FSP). In‐depth interviews were performed on four hawkers from Kuala Lumpur and Taiping.

Of all hawker types, Muslim/Malay hawkers, hawkers with higher educational levels, hawkers in designated sites and hawkers in an urban setting scored the highest on food safety knowledge and/or practice. This study found inadequate distribution/impracticality of regulations/guidelines for hawkers, ambiguities with licensing procedures, weaknesses in training programmes and significant complaints of designated sites by hawkers.

Ethnicity, religion, education and type of premise are socio‐demographic factors that may affect food safety knowledge/practices of hawkers. An urban/less urban setting may also affect hawkers' food safety knowledge/practice. Ineffectiveness of food safety strategies of the Control Authority may exist and may vary across different regions of Malaysia. Thus, food safety strategies must be regulated/reinforced and adapted to hawkers' socio‐demographic status, to ensure the safety of hawker foods in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the food choice motives of consumers in Kuala Lumpur and the relative importance of these factors; to investigate the differences in food choice motives between the Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities and to examine variations in the food selection motives of foodies and non-foodies of the overall sample.

An online questionnaire was employed using a snowballing sampling method with 239 respondents. Food choice motives were measured using Steptoe et al.'s (1995) Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) while a new exploratory measure for foodies was developed to examine respondents’ attitudes, interest and opinions (AIO).

The top three factors of food choice motives were Price, Convenience and Sensory appeal. Ethnicities did not differ in their food choice motives except for Familiarity between Malays and Chinese. Foodies and non-foodies displayed significant differences in their food choice motives, specifically in regards to Balanced diet, Mood and Sensory appeal.

This study is limited to only Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities in Kuala Lumpur. Future studies should explore motives of other minority ethnic groups and examine differences between age, gender and income groups.

Suppliers and marketers of the food industry should consider the important aspects of food choice motives to improve the marketing strategies of their products. Products should be reasonably priced, offer convenience and appealing.

This paper develops a new exploratory measure to capture the AIO of foodies based on Johnston and Baumann (2010) and Cairns et al. (2010).

This study aims to identify the sensory inputs that tourists use to shape their nightlife experiences.

The situations in three Southeast Asian cities, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were examined, using tourist reviews posted on tripadvisor.com. A total of 460 data units concerning Bangkok, 373 data units concerning Kuala Lumpur and 453 data units concerning Singapore were compiled and manually analyzed to reveal the frequency of the primary sensory inputs used by the reviewers. Bivariate correlation analysis was additionally performed to reveal the co-occurrences of the sensory inputs that tourists used to form their impressions of each city.

The findings suggest that gustatory inputs were powerful yet unspecific, while visual inputs were vivid and conspicuous. Audio inputs added certain meaningful contributions to some extent for some tourists. However, the distribution of the sensory inputs differed across the three cities. Moreover, the contributions of the olfactory and tactile inputs are largely missing.

With the management of nightlife businesses (small or micro servicescapes), a thoughtful selection for the drink menu is necessary. When possible, a signature drink should be invented and promoted for each place. With the projection and promotion of tourist destinations as nightlifescapes, a sensory marketing approach should be considered. For example, nightlifescapes could be presented and promoted with unique drinks, good views of the city’s landmarks and interesting local music.

Prior to this study, little research has been carried out to investigate tourists’ nightlife experiences and their impressions of nightlifescapes. In addition, little has been done to identify the sensory inputs that tourists use to explain their experiences and impressions.

It is undeniable that proper planning of spatial development and local regional policies are paramount to ensure whether a country is prosperous or not. In order to ensure its prosperity, discussion on administrative arrangement, spatial development, and regional policy issues in the Malaysian context will be focused. In addition, the importance of Malaysian major development policies and the authorities responsible for its development and implementation are highlighted, followed by the roles of urban development planning. Lastly, Malaysian regional economic corridors, specifically the Northern Corridor Economic Region, are highlighted to show the emphasis given by the Malaysian Government on regional spatial development issues.