By default, the UltraGridExcelExporter exports the underlying cell values and then uses Excel's built-in dropdown-list functionality to translate the value into a display text, just like the grid does. 

You are correct that turning off ExportValueLists will simply bypass this and export only the text the user sees. 

Teodora's solution is okay and should work. But there's a simpler way. 

What you could do is handle the ExportStarted event. This event passes you an UltraGridLayout variable in the event args. This is a cloned copy of the grid's DisplayLayout. So you could access this layout, get the band, get the column and remove the ValueList from the column (set it to null). This would essentially remove the ValueList from the export layout without affecting the on-screen grid.