As one of the most important islands on the Persian Gulf, Qeshm is a place where you can enjoy several natural and historical attractions as well as traditional customs of people.

As one of the most important islands on the Persian Gulf, Qeshm is a place where you can enjoy several natural and historical attractions as well as traditional customs of people.

The affable and hospitable people of Qeshm have established several homestays in different parts of the island, which is ۱۳۵ km long and comprises ۵۹ towns and villages.

On a hot spring morning, I and some of my friends accompanied the head of Qeshm cultural heritage office Abdorreza Dashtizadeh, ecotourism instructor and inspector Ashkan Boruj on their visit to homestays in Qeshm.

Rural tourism is the main type of tourism on Qeshm Island, Dashtizadeh told the Tehran Times while visiting Shafei homestay in Kani village, located in most western part of the island near Salt dome site, the longest salt cave of the world.

In the homestay, Shafei family offers traditional cuisines and handicrafts to tourists who stay there.

Due to the scattering of tourist attractions on the island, the rural tourism encompasses natural, coastal and maritime and historical tourism, he said.

The homestays located inside or suburb of villages, which are near historical and tourist sites, should be empowered, he added.

“We aim to decentralize tourism from Qeshm center but we concern the local culture,” he added.

He said that the office holds several courses on principal of ecotourism, which is preservation of local culture, and warn about social anomalies caused by tourists.

“Unfortunately most of people who come to Qeshm are travelers not tourists so they don’t have any economic benefit for villages of the island,” he lamented.

By establishing homestays, villages also benefit from tourism, he added.

The shortage of infrastructures, such as roads, on the island, intensifies the problem for expanding ecotourism on the island, he said.

“Homestay is a way to help local economic. Qeshm locals are very kind and honest people and it means a lot for a tourism site,” Dashtizadeh concluded.