An illustration of Evergrande's island resort.

Evergrande Real Estate Group, China's second-largest property developer by sales, has spent US$24.6 billion building a large island resort off the coast of northwestern Hainan Province in the vein of Dubai's Palm Jumeirah.

The audacious move, which came amid a weak property market gripped by heavy inventory and lukewarm demand, is set to tap China's booming tourism market which was worth more than US$570 billion in 2014.

Located off northwestern Hainan's Danzhou City, the artificial archipelago, called Ocean Flower Island, is made up of three islets and covers an area of eight square kilometers.

Targeted at high-end tourists and investors, the island resort is populated with valuable villas, hotels, entertainment facilities and shopping malls, and will be complete with a hospital and schools in the future.

Commercial property with a floor space of 1.36 million square meters was sold at the total price of 12.2 billion yuan at the opening of the project, breaking the record sales at the opening for a Chinese property developer.

A high-speed train line circling Hainan Province has been put into operation, reducing the travel time from Danzhou to Sanya and to Haikou to 30 minutes. The new train line will make the island resort better served in terms of transportation.

Tourism has been the main driver of the island province's economy as the province received more than 47 million tourists in 2014, a 10.6 percent increase from a year earlier.

"The project has filled a gap in China's high-end tourism market," said Xiao En, chairman of Haihua Island Property. "The value of the island resort has been recognized by investors due to Evergrande's brand pull as well as Hainan's tourism appeal."

In recent years, Hainan Province has improved a lot in its infrastructure and tourism facilities and attracted increasing numbers of tourists from home and abroad.

"I hope that Evergrande can make the project more competitive by improving the facilities for education, healthcare and in other ways," said Liu Xigui, governor of Hainan during an inspection tour.

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