Extending hot authentication: Imagining fantasy space

Abstract

Fantasy fiction inspires many tourists to seek out and explore sites associated with the originality and inspiration of the production of texts. This paper investigates how both tourists and tourism providers infuse their authentication of urban legends about the inspiration for Harry Potter locations with imagination and (dis)belief. The study extends the theory of hot authentication and assesses author inspiration as an object of tourist desire. Data analysis includes TripAdvisor reviews of the Shambles in York and semi-structured interviews with fantasy tourism providers. We identify four categories of belief in urban legends: heightened belief, uncertainty, disbelief, and the suspension of disbelief. Our findings demonstrate how hot authentication involves off-centred universe-building which transforms historic streets and simulacra into magical loci.