Earlier people used to travel to the foreign countries to experience the uniqueness between the places and the native country, but now that differences have turned into similarities due to many reasons like comfort to tourists. In my opinion, I believe, the merits outweigh the demerits.
To begin with, comfort is something people cannot leave. So, to meet their requirements and comfort level, countries have started building the infrastructure for which people used to commute to far places. For example, the Taj Hotel chain. They have dominated the market by building their resorts on every tourist place. This way their customers do not need to compromise with their comfort. Therefore, the scenery places all over the world is similar.
However, this development has an adverse effect on the country. The country from which the infrastructure is copied, loses its authenticity and uniqueness. For instance, if the famous Patang Restaurant of Ahmedabad is built in every city, it may steal the exicitement among the people to visit it. So, the similarities have negative a impact.
In contrast, there are several advantages. People do not need to waste more money and time just to experience the differences. Also, new buildings can create employements. For a case, a snow city in malls can save alot of money and time of customers by not travelling to far places just to feel snow and at the same time it can create job opportunities to manage snow city. Thus, it has many advantages.
To conclude, there are many differences between the past and the present travelling due to causes of similarities discussed above, with its advantages and disadvantages. From my perspective, I think the advantages of similarities outweigh the disadvantages.