Hotels are clearly very ‘accommodating’ towards their guests when it comes to getting a slice of good PR, as it appears that many hotels in the UK and across the world are offering sweeteners for positive reviews on the travel information website TripAdvisor.

Several of our national newspapers have focused on the issue lately, with reports of free meals and room upgrades, discounts on drinks and even free bathrobes to guests who write highly complimentary reviews about their hotel stay.

TripAdvisor has a system of its own in place, in which it places a red flag against hotels it suspects of cheating the system with fake reviews or incentives for favourable comments and ratings.

But it now looks as if the Office of Fair Trading is about to step in, having said that it would investigate any complaints it received and consider launching an inquiry.

The travel industry clearly recognizes that people are shunning the sales patter in the glossy holiday brochures and turning to social networks and online forums, such as TripAdvisor, in a bid to get the real picture of a prospective holiday destination.

For this reason, we can fully understand the commercial reasons why so many hotels are prepared to go to such lengths in order to get themselves good PR.

But the very point of online reviews is that they are what they say they are – a trusted source of honest and impartial views. And once companies start to abuse them then they undermine the very PR benefits they are seeking to achieve.