Das Hotel braucht mehr Personal.

Because Hotel is a neuter noun in German, so its nominative singular definite article is das.

• der = masculine
• die = feminine
• das = neuter

So:

• das Hotel = the hotel

This also tells you that das Hotel is the subject of the sentence here.

Because the subject is das Hotel, which is third person singular.

The verb brauchen is conjugated like this in the present tense:

• ich brauche
• du brauchst
• er/sie/es braucht
• wir brauchen
• ihr braucht
• sie/Sie brauchen

Since das Hotel is like es, the correct form is braucht.

It is in the accusative case, because it is the direct object of braucht.

The structure is:

• Das Hotel = subject
• braucht = verb
• mehr Personal = direct object

So the hotel is the thing doing the needing, and more staff is the thing needed.

Because mehr here works like more in English before a noun, and Personal is being used as an uncountable collective noun.

So:

• mehr Personal = more staff
• not mehr Personale
• not mehren Personal in this sentence

In this kind of basic quantity expression, mehr usually does not change its form.

No. This is an important false friend.

In German, das Personal means:

• staff
• personnel

It is a noun, not an adjective.

English personal as an adjective is usually persönlich in German.

So:

• mehr Personal = more staff
• persönlich = personal

Because das Personal is a collective noun. It refers to the staff as a group.

This is similar to English staff or personnel:

• The hotel needs more staff
• not necessarily more staffs

So even though many people are involved, German uses the singular noun Personal.

Yes, but the nuance is slightly different.

• mehr Personal = more staff, more personnel, often more general or more formal
• mehr Mitarbeiter = more employees, more workers, more individual people

So all of these can work depending on context:

• Das Hotel braucht mehr Personal.
• Das Hotel braucht mehr Mitarbeiter.

The original sentence sounds very natural if you are talking about staffing needs.

Most naturally, it means a specific hotel: the hotel.

If you wanted to speak more generally, you would more likely say:

• Hotels brauchen mehr Personal. = Hotels need more staff.
• Ein Hotel braucht mehr Personal. = A hotel needs more staff.

So with das Hotel, the listener will usually think of a particular hotel already known from context.

Yes, very commonly.

brauchen often takes a direct object:

• Ich brauche Hilfe. = I need help.
• Wir brauchen Zeit. = We need time.
• Das Hotel braucht mehr Personal. = The hotel needs more staff.

So this sentence uses a very normal pattern: subject + brauchen + accusative object

Yes, but that is a different structure.

Examples:

• Ich brauche mehr Zeit. = I need more time.
• Ich brauche zu schlafen. = I need to sleep.

However, in modern standard German, brauchen + zu + infinitive is especially common in negative or limiting expressions, such as:

• Du brauchst nicht zu kommen. = You do not need to come.

In your sentence, brauchen simply takes a noun object:

• mehr Personal

German main clauses usually follow the verb-second rule.

That means the conjugated verb comes in the second position:

• Das Hotel | braucht | mehr Personal

This is the normal, neutral word order:

1. subject
2. finite verb
3. other elements

You can change the first element for emphasis, but the verb still stays second:

• Mehr Personal braucht das Hotel.

That version emphasizes mehr Personal.

Because all nouns are capitalized in German.

So:

• das Hotel
• mehr Personal

This is one of the most noticeable spelling rules in German.

Roughly:

• braucht sounds a bit like broukht, with the au like English ow in cow, and the ch being a throaty German sound.

A simple learner-friendly breakdown:

• brauch rhymes approximately with English ouch, but with a German ch
• then add t

So: braucht

If pronunciation is difficult, focus especially on:

• au = diphthong
• ch = German sound, not an English k or sh

Yes. A common alternative is benötigt.

• Das Hotel braucht mehr Personal.
• Das Hotel benötigt mehr Personal.

Both mean basically the same thing:

• brauchen = more common in everyday speech
• benötigen = slightly more formal

So the original sentence is natural and neutral.

Grammatically yes, but semantically it really means the hotel as a business or institution needs more staff.

This kind of shorthand is very common in both German and English.

So:

• Das Hotel braucht mehr Personal really means something like
• The hotel management / the hotel operation needs more staff

Not that the building itself has human needs.

It is in the present tense, but like the English present, it can express:

• a current situation: the hotel needs more staff now
• a general fact: the hotel is understaffed in general

So the exact time sense depends on context.