Maybe the owner is a french company?

I'm Geman and travel a lot. No Bonjours for me ever 😉.

I'm from Czechia, and we use our own language. Hotels have some fancy names to attract tourist imho.

Ahem. You can use a french name to sound posh. Like bakeries all over the world do it. Other than that, I can guarantee you 90% of germans won't speak french and despise the french people for not speaking english. So no. Most germans won't speak french unless you find a way to force them. Cordialement… moi. Je suis Allemand.

(Edit: You can show me an example of a question and a german reply and maybe I can tell you what went wrong…)

Bonjour

Crazy gibberish!

They do it to sound cool. Interestingly, in Japan (often nonsensical) English often gets used as a decoration in a similar way: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V347dTGZVl0

As others have said, no, French isn’t particularly widely spoken in Germany or Czechia. My guess would be that France has a reputation for haute couture, so it’s not uncommon for restaurants, hotels, cafes. etc. to take on a little French flair in a similar way to how coffee shops like to become a little bit Italian!

Obviously for a big hotel it’s pretty likely that they will have French guests and quite a few French speaking staff, hotels are a bit like that - it’s not uncommon to hear the person at the front desk switching between 3 languages while interacting with guests of different nationalities, and most Europeans will speak their own language, at least some English, and probably some other European language. For example, I’m Scottish, and I speak English fluently, a little French (enough to deal with the day-to-day on holiday!) and a good bit of Norwegian.

I hope you have a lovely holiday, remember to respect local customs, and try to speak a little of the native language if you can - they’ll probably switch to English nearly immediately but they’ll appreciate the gesture!

Shh, not too loud. Our plan to take over Europe is slowly unfolding

If you can speak fluent english, you'll be fine.

I lived there for two years, and I think I met one french speaking expat during that time. Czech is the official language (surprise!), and "everyone" speaks it (apart from yours truly).

One thing I found interesting while living there was that it was usually a safe bet to assume everyone older than me knew russian as a second language, while everyone my age or younger spoke english.

I lived in Brno, which doesn't have much tourism (just a bunch of expats), but in Prague you'll have no problem with English, I'm sure.

You’re American. Marketing data says that you like all things French and Italian.

Guess what happens next in this salesforce driven industry?

:)

East of Munich you’re best bet is German, but English is also spoken widely. West of Munich you’re more or less fine with English. In the northern countries we are used to the fact no one speaks our language so we all speak English, a lot of people French and a lot of German because it’s close to our own.

Italians try English. As do most Spanish. Try is the magic word here, it’s like your Spanish after high school or my French. :)

French don’t try. They speak French. Period. In hotels etc. (tourist spots) English is spoken by few employees. But they are there. :)

In the balkans the situation is mixed. Some parts English, some German, some French, some Russian. I get by with an English/German mix in Croatia. my German is better then my French… But not a lot). Here in the Netherlands my level of German is widely called “steenkolen Duits” (coal German) because it’s course, harsh, hard and dirty)

Anyway you’ll be fine. Have a great vacation.

Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia?

No. This title is likely taken by Turkish.

Or is it something else?

Many phrases from European languages are common knowledge across Europe. I'm about to go grab some coffee. When I walk in to the coffee shop, I'm free to say "Hello" in one of 10+ languages and no one will think anything of it. Why would I do that? Maybe because I'm in the mood. Ciao!