Barwa Real Estate announced plans this week to build a $5.5bn residential and resort project on an island off the coast of Qatar, including five temporary floating hotels to accommodate visitors for the 2022 World Cup.

The pedestrian-only development, Oryx Island, would also include a cruise ship terminal, a water park, hotels, commercial space and a 250-hectare resort.

The hotels would be large enough to accommodate as many as 25,000 people, Barwa’s chief executive Abdulla Abdulaziz Al Subaie told local press during the Cityscape Qatar event this week.

However, Al-Subaie acknowledged that the project is only in the conceptual stage and Barwa, the real estate arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, has struggled to turn many of its ambitious concepts into reality.