Part of it is that, for the special case of homogeneous spaces and genus 0, it can be shown that GW invariants count the solutions to certain enumerative problems (how many rational curves of degree $d$ are there that intersect general translates of given cohomology classes) and some rather old problems in algebraic geometry were solved this way, for instance, Kontsevich's formula for (stable) rational plane curves of degree $d$ passing through $3d-1$ points in general position.
More generally, they are invariants that let us distinguish different varieties of the same dimension, by generalizing the cohomology ring.
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