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Anthony Bourdain's tweeting on 'No Reservations' a boon for Travel Channel

By April MacIntyre Mar 11, 2011, 5:07 GMT

Anthony Bourdain - 8th Annual Food Bank For New York City\'s "Can-Do" Awards Dinner - Arrivals - Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers, 23rd Street and the Hudson River - New York City, NY, USA © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

Anthony Bourdain is a chef, adventurer and prolific writer. He is also a major draw on Travel Channel.

Bourdain's tweets and social media finesse have the network scrambling to copy the format Anthony has established for other Travel Channel programs, including future episodes of the Bourdain show.

"We're looking for other people such as [Bourdain's] sidekicks to tweet for him," said a Travel Channel spokeswoman. "We want to be able to maintain the momentum." Sidekicks are people who travel along with Bourdain during his overseas escapades, and who sometimes appear on screen.

The ratings for last season's premier of No Reservations are the highest for the network, and according to Kate Kaye at clickz.com, "the show's @NoReservations account was mentioned around 8,500 times during the hour it was broadcast February 28."

The show is on fire at Twitter, as @NoReservations has gained an enormous following and currently is at a little over 312,000 followers.

"This is the first time we had talent tweeting live," Travel Channel told Kaye.

According to Kaye's report, "The idea to turn the episode into a live tweeting event originated from the network," said the Travel Channel spokeswoman. "It was an idea to be able to bring in fans to the conversation about the issue with Haiti and drive that tune-in."

Bourdain continued his live tweeting during the March 7, set in Cambodia.

Bourdain and Travel Channel are also working with GetGlue and other Social Media check in outlets to foster a bigger "No Reservations" community.

Bourdain is also writing some storylines for David Simon's "Treme" on HBO this season.