dad is translated père in French. This is a masculine noun going with the article le (singular) or les (when plural). je suis le père de Luc > I am Luke's father le principal veut voir les...
hotel is a masculine noun in French: un hôtel. BUT you can't write 'le hôtel' because that doesn't sound good (two vowels sound sucessively), so you write and pronounce l'hôtel - (L + apostrophe...