'' cruise ship at Swettenham Pier Towards the end of the 19th century, as maritime traffic into the
Port of Penang continued to increase and railway lines in the
Malay Peninsula were being built, the expansion of the
Port of Penang became crucial. Up until the late 1960s, steamers and other cargo vessels with a draft of up to used to dock at Swettenham Pier. The pier's heyday was abruptly ended, however, with the revocation of
George Town's free port status by the
Malaysian federal government in 1969. In the early 2000s, Swettenham Pier was upgraded into a cruise shipping terminal. The Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal, with a new three-storey building and an
aerobridge, was completed in 2009. George Town's cruise tourism industry has been booming ever since, with Swettenham Pier soon attracting cruise ships of increasing size, such as the
RMS Queen Mary 2. In 2017, Swettenham Pier overtook
Port Klang as the busiest cruise shipping harbour in
Malaysia. == Operational statistics ==