Shanghai Daily news

The Special Olympics hotels are ready and waiting for their first guests with gifts and special treats, Shanghai Daily reported.

The 96 selected hotels have arranged special treatment for the visitors and have planned out-of-the-ordinary services.

Many are replacing glasses with plastic or paper cups, 1,000 small toys will be given to the athletes to play with and several employees have been trained in foreign languages including Spanish and Arabic.

The executive committee of the 2007 Shanghai Special Olympic Summer Games is now asking the 96 hotels to make one final effort to upgrade facilities, food safety and environment.

Yesterday the hotels each received a certificate from the committee which chose the hotels after considering public security, health, food safety, and experience.

"They have done a lot to welcome the Special Olympic athletes," said Wang Wei, deputy secretary general of the committee. "But small problems still exist."

Among the small problems that still need fixing are hotel signs that are not clear enough, freezers and boilers that need replacing and one hotel that has yet to put a fence around its river bank.

As well as the hotels, 1,877 local families will host Special Olympic athletes including hurdle superstar Liu Xiang's family and the famous movie director Xie Jin's family.