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330 investment
The link between tourism and inversion is also
manifested in more specific contexts. It is, in
particular, an important element of motivation,
because tourism offers the opportunity to escape
from one lifestyle to another. For some, to be a
tourist is to be able to indulge in a fantasy life of
the `idle rich', to be king or queen for a day;
conversely, others may seek to escape the trappings
of wealth and modernity for a far more simple or
traditional existence. In either case, the holiday is
an inversion of everyday reality. Tourists may also
be motivated by the chance to escape from the
rules and constraints of their home society. Freed
from time commitments and codes of dress and
behaviour, among others, tourism allows people
to participate in ludic behaviour. Thus, the
responsible, constrained, work-like nature of normal
life is inverted into the frivolous, carefree and
play-like existence of the holiday, and in that sense
is comparable to the temporary inversion from
adulthood back to childhood.
Inversion is also central to the concept of
tourism as a modern religious experience or
ritual. Traditionally, the passage of ordinary,
profane time is interrupted by festivals or events,
such as Christmas or Easter, which have a religious
or sacred significance and which represent brief
slices of sacred time. Similarly, the annual summer
holiday is a modern secular ritual which people
utilise to add meaning to their lives or to `re-create'
and which therefore represents the temporary shift
or inversion from ordinary, profane time to sacred
time.
See also: tourist as child; liminality; pilgrimage;
play
Further reading
Gottlieb, A. �1982) Àmericans' vacations', Annals of
Tourism Research 9�1): 165±87.
Graburn, N. �1989) `Tourism: the sacred journey',
in V. Smith �ed.), Hosts and Guests:The Anthropology
of Tourism, 2nd edn, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 21±36.
Lett, J. �1983) `Ludic and liminoid aspects of
charter yacht tourism in the Caribbean', Annals
of Tourism Research 10�1): 35±56.
RICHARD SHARPLEY, UK
investment
Many economic variables can be classified into
either flow or stock variables. Investment is a flow
concept, and it relates to the rate at which the stock
of capital increases, decreases or remains unchanged.
Thus investment tends to be related to
the purchase of goods that have some quality of
longevity associated with them. If the goods do not
possess this characteristic then the purchase is
simply consumption.
Investment is a term that encompasses all issues
relating to the maintenance or increase in
productive capacity, and can take place with
respect to all aspects or factors of production. For
instance, businesses may invest in capital equipment
in order to replace obsolete or worn-out
capital, or to increase its productive capacity. Zero
investment will not maintain the capital stock and
it will diminish until the rate of it can at least offset
the rate of capital usage �depreciation). Businesses
may also invest in land in order to expand or rearrange
its activities in a more effective manner.
Still, businesses may invest in human capital by
training its workforce in an attempt to make the
labour factor more productive or effective. Similarly,
an individual may invest in their human
capital by improving the skill or knowledge base
and its value can be estimated as the cost of that
acquisition of skills and/or education plus the
earning opportunities foregone during that acquisition.
Characteristically, textbooks tend to break
investment down into gross and net investments. The
former is concerned with the production of new
and the improvement of capital goods already in
existence. This may be contrasted with the latter
which relates to gross investment less the amount of
the capital stock used up in the production process
�depreciation).
Investment in tourism can be examined from a
number of aspects. For instance, the industry
generally requires investment in infrastructure in
communications, transportation, utilities and
the like. Therefore, new port and airport facilities,
sewage treatment and desalination plants and
satellite telephone systems are all examples of
capital investment infrastructure. On the other
hand, new hotel buildings, restaurants and
theatres are investments in superstructure. But