When the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) was established in 1990, the founding Members of this private sector industry association decided that the quantification of Travel & Tourism's impact on world and national economies would be the most important contribution they could make to achieve their goal of raising awareness among policy leaders and decision-makers of Travel & Tourism's economic contribution and its potential for creating wealth and employment around the world. The subsequent 17 years of investment in solid, professional and credible research, which to date has exceeded US $5million - and is now sponsored by Accenture - made a significant contribution to the development of the new international standard for Tourism Satellite Accounting (TSA) research, adopted in 2001 by the United Nations Statistical Commission.