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A few random thoughts on travel from a grizzled veteran (and sorta-kinda-vaguely travel pro, once, in a weird way) who happens to be in Thailand at the moment:
1. The backpacker scene is all but dead. Here we define "backpacker" very loosely as people, mostly in their 20s and early 30s, who travel for extended periods, on a budget, semi-sequentially, seeking creative discomfort and/or exotic havens.
This was a big sociocultural segment from circa 1995-2010, led by the Lonely Planet publishing empire (who play a big part in my debut novel.) But it seems, to both me and @GavinChait in West Africa, that they've all but withered away nowadays.
The most memorable single line in Alex Garland's THE BEACH is: "One of these days I'm going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers, and I'm going to ask them, what's so fucking lonely about the Khao Sanh Road?" That being backpacker central in Bangkok.
If I make it to Bangkok this week I'll check out the Khao Sanh Road with the strong expectation that it will feel a lot lonelier than it did in 2000.
2. That's just one subculture though. There are way more travellers, and a huge amount I'd then growth is Russian and especially Chinese. You see menus in Cyrillic, and half the names held by waiting drivers outside Phuket airport were Chinese.
3. The other growth is of course in so-called "digital nomads," ie people who go to somewhere faraway to live and work there, maybe remotely. To oversimplify, this cohort has replaced the backpackers - why spend months and money traveling when you can earn & advance your career?
And of course the digital nomads still travel and explore in fits and starts, when not working ... though I'd argue this is a fundamentally different form of travel. When working, though, they mostly cluster in semi-Westernized enclaves. (Not a dig; I'd do the same thing.)
They also cluster in desirable places developed enough to have Minimum Viable Infrastructure, ie reliable water, power, roads, Internet, and security. These are also where tourists go. So you get a rich-get-richer virtuous cycle; Phuket is Thailand's wealthiest province.
(Desirable and Developed are completely orthogonal, of course. Just ask any backpacker!)
I'll refrain from drawing any conclusions here, at least for now, for fear it will lead to using the m-word ("millennials.") I will point out however that the world is far wealthier than in 1995, and travel vastly easier, so this is all at least a little counterintuitive.
