Since the 1990’s, the globalization phenomenon has transformed urban spaces. Cities are repositioned as competitive pivotal nodes in globalized networks. Moreover, the metropolization phenomenon coincides with a new urban economy that activates a growing commodification of cities thus becoming tourism destinations. However, the relationship between globalization, metropolization and touristification is seldom articulated in a singular reflection. Besides, academic research has focused on European and American cities, giving it a much Western perspective to global dynamics. Studies on non-Western cities, especially in Southeast Asia remain relatively marginal. The proposal of this study is to look at the dynamics of tourism and the metropolisation in Kuala Lumpur. The Malaysian capital, appears to be both an urban and a multicultural model, aims at becoming a "global" city despite its contradictions mirrored through the tourism components. The practices of the city and its representations refer to urbanity, branding and qualitative criteria, in which tourism plays a key role. The analysis of the cosmopolitan metropolis, with global enclaves, connected to other cities, navigates between local and global scales. This research is organized into three parts. The theoretical underpinnings are reviewed in the first part, then, in the second part the focus moves on to the context of Kuala Lumpur. The last part addresses the urban project dynamics in the light of the touristification through a multiscalar perspective.
