Platform 9 Objectives

Platform 9 ¾ is a site definable within a diverse range of literary tourism models. It is a site of significance within the fiction and a site which has also become popular through the appeal of the series (Butler, 1986). The platform can be defined through its position in travel writing (Busby and Klug, 2001 ; Busby, 2004) which sees both mainstream travel guides and more niche titles investigate the site and its relevance towards children's literature. Thus, when considered from a literary tourism perspective, the site of Platform 9 ¾ is one which is subject to a range of multiple readers and readings; each of which being subject to its own particular ideological motivations and subsequently positioning those motivations upon the site.
Following its temporary residence in a series of positions around the station: ""They've moved a mythical platform outside," I thought. And yet somehow it made perfect sense." (Laing and Frost, 2012a : 28), the platform is now located on a wall within the main shopping concourse of the station. The platform is directly adjacent to The Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 ¾, a retail store which offers the purchase of a diverse range of branded memorabilia. Upon arriving at the wall, the tourist queues through branded crowd control barriers for their photo opportunity at the site itself. The site consists of a luggage trolley half-embedded in the wall with several suitcases additionally half-embedded into the wall. A stuffed white owl in a cage, clearly intended to resemble Harry's owl, Hedwig, stands upon the top of the cases. Notably Hedwig is the only element on the wall that refrains from being half-embedded in the wall, thus both emphasising the apparent motion within this static tableau and also providing a reminder of appropriate owl
Watson juxtaposes the platform with a discussion of the setting for Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, commenting that "[after Platform 9 ¾ ] visiting Swallows and Amazons country is almost sensible." (3). Positioning Platform 9 ¾ as a counterpoint towards the bucolic Lake District sees a clear distinction being made between the landscapes. Such a distinction, with its clear weighted value towards the Lake District and the sensibilities of visiting such, in comparison to Platform 9 ¾ , denies the relevance of the platform within contemporary literary tourism critique and implicitly positions it as a lesser site in the pantheon of literary tourism. Such a critique is unjust and denies both the cultural and critical agency of visitors to Platform 9 ¾. Though the site is undoubtedly commercial, and overtly so, it is a commercialism driven by touristic demand; a phenomenon not unique in literary tourism, which saw "commercial produced literary souvenirs [being]available as early as the 1760s" (12). Where Platform 9 ¾ differs is through the nature of that commercialisation. Until mid 2015, the platform was located next door to an bookshop : Watermark Books. Following the subsequent closure of Watermark Books (Shaffi, 2015), the Harry