Launched in Macau more than a decade ago, specialist hospitality logistics firm TKHS Group has since expanded across Asia and beyond – with no signs of slowing down any time soon.
His name might not resonate quite to the extent of industry luminaries Stanley Ho or Sheldon Adelson, yet few people have played a part in the development of so many Macau integrated resorts as Sam Wilson.
A key member of the in-house team at Sands China shortly after The Venetian Macao opened its doors, Wilson also worked on pre-opening for Four Seasons Hotel Macao and Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and spent time as Regional Manager for Kuehne + Nagel – which ran logistics for Galaxy Macau among others – before starting his own specialist logistics firm, TKHS Group, in 2013, counting Melco Resorts, MGM China and Wynn Macau Ltd among its clients.
“In one way or another I was involved in almost every single one of those projects along the Cotai Strip,” Wilson laughs from his Manila office, itself a testament to the rapid growth his company has experienced in the nearly 12 years since its founding. “Personally, it’s quite satisfying whenever I go back to Macau knowing that I played at least a small part in its development.”
It is also the recovery of the Macau market that has piqued Wilson’s interest over the past two years, with operators having demonstrated a clear desire to reinvest in their properties as a means of heightening their appeal to the rising mass and premium mass markets.
While the pandemic years hit his company hard – particularly given TKHS Group’s specialized focus on luxury hospitality and gaming resort projects – the past 12 months have been kinder.
“It was good last year, in 2024, to finally see some new business start to come through, and some new projects,” he explains. “We saw some new casinos were announced and new, smaller projects like refurbishments, operators changing their room configurations from single-bay rooms to double-bay rooms, and new facilities.
“We were involved last year with Studio City’s new Dolby cinema which needed to have a lot of specialist equipment imported with special transport arrangements, and we have a couple of other projects now, including one with MGM to do with changing the room configurations.
“While there have been some challenges in recent years, we’ve handled it well because we have a small but well-established team in Macau that is supported by our back-office in the Philippines which looks after our finance, human resources and IT.”
As Wilson explains, his core local team now sits at 15 staff – scaling up when project demands require it – and includes one person in charge of freight shipping, a handful running the warehouse and a specialist installation team overseeing everything from the installation of gaming equipment to hotel furniture.
However, it is the company’s unrivalled industry expertise that Wilson says sets TKHS apart in the Macau market.
“By far we’ve got the longest-standing experience in Macau. There isn’t another company out there that has done what we’ve done for such a long time and on so many projects,” he offers.
“My team in Macau has been with me from day one, for 11 years, and we’ve been very active in that time on everything from Studio City to Wynn Palace, MGM Cotai and even The 13 was one of ours. It’s been a lot of repeat business, repeat projects one after another, and I think that shows with our track record the trust that we’ve gained from the operators there.”
Philippine dream
While Macau will always remain the heart of TKHS, there is no doubt the Philippines has emerged as its pumping lungs. Boasting 392 staff nationwide, the company’s bustling Manila office is complemented by another in Cebu – itself set to relocate to a space five times larger than the original – with smaller offices operating in Clark, Davao and in the coming months Subic.
More recently Wilson has launched a shared services business running right alongside the TKHS Manila team which employs 212 people of its own, offering a raft of back-office support such as loyalty programs, booking reservations, customer service, data quality and more.
“The Philippines has been a huge market for us, particularly in Manila which has become the core of our business over the last seven or eight years and is really what led me to move here,” he says.
“But much like Macau, we’re starting to see a bit of an evolution and some new opportunities arising. The existing properties, a lot of them are coming due for revamps and refurbishments, and others are making changes to their facilities, especially now with the POGOs being gone (Ed: President Marcos banned the Philippines offshore gaming industry effective 1 January 2025).
“That has really affected the land-based casinos too because a lot of the Chinese population has disappeared, so they need to reconfigure their gaming floors and accommodation and we’re now seeing that in Manila.”
Wham bam Vietnam
Eleven years after it was founded, TKHS Group now boasts around 450 permanent staff worldwide working across 17 entities in 12 countries. Most recently the company has expanded into Sri Lanka via Melco’s City of Dreams project at Colombo’s Cinnamon Life, into the UAE and Saudi Arabia and even into Sweden as well as other parts of Europe. However, few regions boast as much untapped potential as Vietnam, according to Wilson.
It was with this in mind that he established TKHS Global Logistics (Vietnam) Co Ltd in 2022 following a merger with pre-existing Vietnamese business Global Logistics and Express Co Ltd.
The company, which also looks after logistics in Cambodia and Laos, has established its core business around the many VIP Clubs operating in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi but sees greater opportunity ahead.
“It would be great to see the larger [integrated resort] projects in Vietnam really take off,” Wilson says. “They exist but they’re not really flourishing yet given the restrictions on the local market. That’s what makes the Philippines such a great market – the domestic market – and there is such a huge local market in Vietnam as well just waiting to be tapped into.
“Actually, one of our main reasons to invest in Vietnam was for the customs clearance procedures, because it’s quite a complicated, opaque procedure there, and we really needed to have that local know-how like we’ve got in the Philippines. So, I’m happy with our Vietnam business; we’ve got offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi with a presence in Danang, but we’d love to see some of the larger projects get moving, and when they do, we’re ready to go.”
