Hotels are increasingly offering more grab-and-go food.

WITH a Javits Center trade show scheduled to take up the majority of his day last month, Allen Marko, director of technical and plant operations for Obagi Medical Products, had no time to stop for a bite.

“I didn’t want to waste my time at the show having lunch,” Mr. Marko said.

A guest at the Grand Hyatt New York, he solved the time problem at Market, a new grab-and-go outlet in the hotel lobby with no seating and lunch options like deli sandwiches ($7.50) and roast chicken with mashed potatoes ($12).

“I was extremely impressed,” Mr. Marko said. “I knew I had a 20-minute cab ride so I grabbed a sandwich in the cab.”

Working lunches and multitasking are standard procedures for many business travelers. The difference now is that hotels are vying to cater to their habits as grab-and-go meals trickle up from fast-food counters to more refined addresses.

“Business travelers are packing more time into the day, using their travel time to work,” said Matthew Adams, vice president and managing director for the 1,300-room Grand Hyatt. “You saw them streaming out of the hotel going to Starbucks.”

The success of Starbucks at stealing breakfast — and sometimes lunch — crowds from their hotels has inspired the hospitality industry to punch back with an array of travel- and budget-friendly food options. They include room service to-go menus, fancy food courts and globe-trotting gourmet markets, distancing grab-and-go food from its humble origins in vending machines.

“Travel is about productivity and using every minute wisely,” said Bjorn Hanson, associate professor at the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. “The dining room is perceived to have slow service and high prices.”

As senior associate director of development for Rochester University, Alan Carmasin travels nearly every other week, often staying at the Aloft Hotel in Lexington, Mass., where guests can toast their own bagels ($2), grab a breakfast sandwich ($6) or take away a boxed salad ($6.50) from the 24-hour self-service lobby cafe called Re:fuel.

“If I have time I’ll sit down, but I’m just as happy to grab and go because I may be meeting a client or have to work in the room,” Mr. Carmasin said. “I like their program. It’s not luxurious, but it’s friendly.”

The two-year-old chain, which operates 40 hotels, is set up for the self-sufficiency of travelers like Mr. Carmasin.

“This is a group that likes to service themselves,” said Brian McGuinness, senior vice president for specialty select brands at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. “They check in themselves, they get their own coffee. They believe they can do it better. Control is an important factor to them.”

Restoring control to travelers in uncertain times is a rallying cry among food and beverage managers eager to serve those with no time for their restaurants nor interest in airport food. The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago sells 20 to 30 lunches to go a week from the room service menu, and more to groups who give the hotel’s insulated lunch bags stuffed with options like Maine lobster pita ($40) and grilled chicken Caesar wrap ($28) to airport-bound meeting attendees.

The W2Go menu at the W Atlanta-Midtown offers $15 lunchboxes from Spice restaurant, which is run by the celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Recent selections included a Vietnamese chicken sandwich with nuoc cham mayo and grilled eggplant spread.

Panzano, a restaurant in the Hotel Monaco Denver, offers guests a “breakfast with wings” menu, featuring house-made granola ($6.75) and a breakfast croissant sandwich ($8.50) ready in 15 minutes, as early as 6 a.m.

Hotels say food sales have increased with to-go programs, rather than cannibalizing restaurant traffic. Many attribute the popularity of grab-and-go to the budget worries brought about by a lagging economy.

“People are less comfortable paying $25 for breakfast, plus gratuity,” said Mr. Hanson of N.Y.U. “Takeaway is in tune with economic times.”

In addition to offering to-go packaging at all of its restaurants, Marriott International is expanding its lobby markets. This month the Grosvenor House, a JW Marriott Hotel in London, will open Park Lane Market, replacing a street-level coffee shop with an upscale take-out shop featuring sandwiches, salads and sweets. The company also operates food markets at resorts in Orlando and Phoenix.

“We tested doorknob to-go lunch menus seven years ago and it didn’t work; it’s working now,” said Robin Uler, chief creative officer for Marriott International, who cites the productivity squeeze and the lack of airline food service for forging the trend. “Now if you don’t think about lunch when you can, you may not get it until after five.”

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts plans to open its new food hall in New York’s venerable Plaza Hotel by late spring. Modeled on a European gourmet market like the one in London’s Harrods department store, the 5,400-square-foot market includes eight dining stations devoted to sushi, burgers, noodles, pizza, seafood and more. Food is made to order and prepackaged for carry-out. Though menu pricing is undetermined, management says it will appeal to trimmed expense accounts.

In addition to lowering the cost to consumers, grab-and-go food is cheaper to sell, said Joe Brancatelli, who runs the business Web site JoeSentMe.com.

“It’s worked for hotels because it’s a lower-cost way of delivering food,” he said. “Nothing is more expensive than room service.”

Indeed, even Mr. Adams of the Grand Hyatt New York sympathizes with room service complaints. “Guests don’t understand $38 for two eggs over easy from traditional room service,” he said. “They don’t see the infrastructure that goes into it.”

Without the service overhead, to-go prices are closer to those of nonhotel vendors, where guests were often heading. Aiming to keep them in-house, the Grand Hyatt’s Market will begin selling beer and wine, along with its array of prepared meals and snacks. What if you don’t finish that six-pack? A room renovation beginning in July will install refrigerators to store items from the lobby larder.