Why Don't Destinations Position Themselves More Like Consumer Brands Do?

This weekend I saw an ad promoting the city of Orlando in a travel magazine in which the campaign theme was "Orlando. Built for Families. Made for Memories." It caught my attention because that's exactly how I feel about Orlando. A positioning that made an emotional connection. I immediately thought that destinations don't do enough to position themselves more like consumer brands do. In the same magazine, there was an ad from the Louisiana Department of Tourism with the theme "Come Fall in Love with Louisiana All Over Again." After what happened to New Orleans, the campaign seems absolutely perfect. I was also positively surprised to see that the classic 'I♥NY' campaign first launched in 1977 has made a comeback and its the campaign theme for The State of New York Tourism Bureau.

My immediate reaction was to google (don't you just love the verb...) some of Brazil's top destinations like Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçú, the Amazon Forest or Pantanal. All great world-class destinations, but not surprisingly, not all are doing a good job positioning themselves to connect with the hearts and minds of the global traveller. On the other hand, a good example is Bahia (www.bahia.com.br) with their new campaign 'Terra da Felicidade/Land of Happiness'. The website is easy in terms of navigation with useful travel information.
The Brazilian Government has a good website www.turismo.gov.br but it seems to be targeting only local tourists since it was in Portuguese and when I clicked on other languages, nothing happened. I found an English version www.braziltourism.org that is definitely not as interesting as the first site.