Mass tourism, impossibly high rents, worker exploitation, inequality and elitism: Venice protests in recent days against Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s high-profile wedding have highlighted growing global grievances.

Local politicians dismissed protesters as a fringe minority. Bezos’s fame and Venice’s stunning visual backdrop have offered them international visibility which they effectively exploited.

“No Space for Bezos” banners draped over the iconic Rialto Bridge and a huge canvas laid out on St Mark’s Square urging the tech billionaire to pay more taxes have been seen all over the world.

Concerns of greater disruptions forced Bezos and his bride to move their final and biggest celebrity party from the central district to a more isolated venue in the eastern part of the lagoon city.

“The idea that the city should be seen as a set, a stage, or an amusement park has been highlighted like never before by Bezos’ wedding,” Tommaso Cacciari, a frontman for the No Space for Bezos movement, told Reuters.

In the final protest on Saturday, around 1,000 residents and activists rallied in front of Venice’s train station under a scorching sun, before marching roughly 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) to the Rialto Bridge.

They carried banners including one proclaiming ‘Kisses yes, Bezos no’, playing on Venice’s reputation as the city of love, and another one saying ‘No space for Bezos’ with a rocket, in a reference to his Blue Origin space technology company.

Venetian businesses and politicians, however, welcomed the event, hailing its major boost for the local economy. Luca Zaia, the regional governor of Veneto around Venice, said the city should be proud of hosting the wedding.