WAYN, the largest travel and lifestyle social media platform in the world, has won World’s Leading Travel Social Network at the World Travel Awards 2013, which is known as “the Oscars of the travel industry”.

The awards were held at a gala ceremony in Doha, Qatar this year, where WAYN beat off competition from the other nominees Couchsurfing, Dopplr, Gogobot, Minube, TripIt, Tripping, Trippy, tripwolf and VirtualTourist.

This year the World Travel Awards marks its 20th anniversary, after being launched back in 1993 to acknowledge and recognise excellence in the global travel and tourism industry.

It is regarded as the very highest achievement a travel product can receive.

The awards are voted for by professionals working within travel and tourism – senior executives, travel buyers, tour operators and travel agents.

Since 2009, voting has also been opened to the public to reflect the growing role that the World Travel Awards plays in influencing how people make their travel decisions.

Peter Ward, co-founder and chief executive, WAYN said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have been recognised as the World’s Leading Travel Social Network, winning this award tops off a fantastic year for WAYN and it really demonstrates how far we’ve come.”

He added: “WAYN currently has over 22 million users around the globe and we are so grateful to our members for their loyalty and support.

“Next year our aim is to continue to develop new and innovative products for our users and to ensure that WAYN remains the number one choice for travellers around the world.”